You’re confusing cause with effect. Portland has a poverty problem, not a drug problem. Housing prices there are extreme. Wages there are nowhere close enough to afford housing there. This has displaced a buttload of people out of their homes and onto the street. These people have nothing left of their old lives, nowhere to go, and nothing to do but get high and detach themselves from their horrible reality as much as possible, especially now that it’s over 100°F outside. Better than slowly and horribly dying of hyperthermia in a prison cell while fully conscious and sober, like what’s happening in some other parts of the country.
Oregon has serious problems—catastrophic problems, even—but drug legalization isn’t one of them. It’s just a convenient scapegoat for people who don’t want to solve those problems.
How is that relevant? Nobody proposed to make it legal for people to use drugs out in the open. Presumably they’ll still be arrested if they do.
I didn’t really understand how condoms were all that similar to narcan, but you went with it anyway.
Anyhow:
Visit Portland and you’ll understand. It’s legal to do drugs on the street. They distribute tin foil and straws. You can get narcan easily.
It’s a shit show.
If you don’t put words in my mouth, it’s just this: there’s a better place to distribute medical devices than a hospital.
You’re confusing cause with effect. Portland has a poverty problem, not a drug problem. Housing prices there are extreme. Wages there are nowhere close enough to afford housing there. This has displaced a buttload of people out of their homes and onto the street. These people have nothing left of their old lives, nowhere to go, and nothing to do but get high and detach themselves from their horrible reality as much as possible, especially now that it’s over 100°F outside. Better than slowly and horribly dying of hyperthermia in a prison cell while fully conscious and sober, like what’s happening in some other parts of the country.
Oregon has serious problems—catastrophic problems, even—but drug legalization isn’t one of them. It’s just a convenient scapegoat for people who don’t want to solve those problems.
I’m curious to see how the situations become similar in Phoenix when the water runs out, and it’s 130°