Oregon is the first state to decriminalize all illegal drugs

Originally published at: Oregon is the first state to decriminalize all illegal drugs | Boing Boing

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Rehab programs not only empower individuals, she says, but save communities money."

Well sure, but as much as conservatives love money (which they do – a lot – they love cruelty even more.

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Good, if only they could tax them and use the money for counselling and health care.

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Time to celebrate in Oregon. Here is your vintage 90s industrial/dance playlist to start you out.

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Whatever will all those LEO’s do with all that extra time on their collective hands?

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I’d like to say take up knitting, but probably something negative, like serving eviction notices :frowning:

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time to roll out some some "Oregon the party state " license plates - kidding of course.
this needs to be done for many reasons especially to make it easier to crack down on fentanyl. yay for the Netherlands for showing us the way so we can follow in their wooden footsteps.

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If you look at the historical context of drug laws, you can see how they were enacted primarily to incarcerate minorities. So I don’t think even a positive outcome in Oregon will appeal to conservative legislators. If anything, it would threaten them with more minority citizens able to vote.

Still, it’s a good start, and the fact the that different states can pioneer new laws is one of the big strengths of federalism in the US.

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Enforce social distancing on a scale determined by shades?

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Nice, but it needs more Electric Wizard: Satanic Rites of Drugula - YouTube

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Ah, the example of Portugal, Portugal, Portugal comes home to Oregon.

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WOW! This is great. A first step to be sure, but this is how marijuana normalization (a process obviously still underway) began. Some States had to show it could be done without bedlam occurring, others started to see the benefits incl. cost-savings, and then it’s been momentum ever since.

One of my first reports in junior high social studies was about drug legalization/decriminalization. It’s nice to see that the world is finally catching up with 13-year-old me… :wink: And yes, this was before I ever took a puff, haha!

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Well, the change in policy is still going to be a huge cost saving as it is…

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Aside from the over-arching question of the effectiveness of involuntary treatment, there is the basic problem of what constitutes treatment. If there is government funding to support this required treatment, what programs will be eligible for it? The opportunities for grift all over it.

Just check out the whole “Moral Reconation” gobbledook scam.

Is Oregon a nice place, or a shithole? I only know of hipster Portland. I have no idea what the rest is like, maybe its infested with conservatives or militia people, like my PA seems to be.

I’m honestly not sure, I only know that there were a lot of riots there last years, which I understood, but what is the rest of the state, or the state overall like?

Its like all the West Coast, all the US states and BC in Canada: nice lefty people mixed with plutocrats on the coast, mouth-breathing inbred protofascists and cult compounds inland.

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But the moral hazard is even greater with private prisons. Also, there is already a pretty sizable rehabilitation infrastructure in Oregon. If that needed to be built out to accommodate an influx, that would have greater risk of exploitation.

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Sounds exactly like PA, if Pittsburgh and Philly were small oceans at the theoretical center.

So basically, no different than here.

Go into rural PA, and go down the wrong road, and you might be threatened with a gun. Rurals are always the same. sigh.

In my experience, the moment you get to a place where people no longer regularly have to actually learn to tolerate different sorts of people on a regular basis, you start to run into this. Seems to be a human trait and not at all limited the the USA…

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Rural Oklahoma was same way.

Your observation is spot on. That’s basically how I’ve always framed it- it’s like that wherever people don’t have to openly interact with people unlike them that attitudes like that come to be.

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