Corporate media outlets like The New York Times are misleading the public on drug decriminalization in Oregon.
So when fentanyl hit Portland, it hit during an unprecedented housing crisis. It meant that the suffering of our neighbors is not occurring behind closed doors, but rather right in front of our faces. People do not use drugs in public when they have an alternative to doing so. It is an act of last resort. If you want people to make better choices, give them better options. It is commonplace to see people smoking fentanyl while crouching in stoops, sitting at bus stops.
Conflating drug addiction with homelessness is a long-standing practice of opponents in their attempt to victim blame. Only recently, with the passage of Measure 110, has it morphed into conflatingwith homelessness. Officials and pundits persistently attempt to redirect our attention on the housing crisis to drug use, mental health or progressive permissiveness. Yet the fact remains: The sole predictor of homelessness is how rent-burdened people are.
Addiction is defined as continued use despite negative consequences. Increasing the negative consequences through the criminal legal system has not been shown to dissuade drug use, with ashowing no correlation between arrest rates and substance use rates. Punitive policies may make the problem less visible, but no less present.
The more nuanced of the reactionaries instead talk about carrots and sticks. We need both positive incentives alongside negative incentives , so their logic goes. Most people who have struggled with alcohol or substances at some point in their life managed to get a handle on their problem without ever needing a stick, though. Treatment is far more successful when the person receiving it actually wants it.
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