Because we can say the exact same thing in the other direction. Go to a group that's grieving over car deaths, and tell them you're glad that resources that could have helped are instead going to fight the war on drugs.
Since this method gets such contradictory results, maybe it's a bad method for evaluating things!
In these groups is the consensus view you've all come to that addiction is to blame and nothing else of note? Any shared group feeling about overall policy solutions? Or everyone thinks if drugs were maximally criminalized they wouldn't be there?
I'm genuinely curious but I'm also biased. I was a homeless street addict myself for a long time and the only way I ever got out was a combination of harm reduction and expensive medical attention I am in no way entitled to as an american.
Most of my problems were ultimately caused by carceral violence and I can't really see how more of it would have helped me. But idk, open to other views I guess.
Thanks for your comment, it's good to have perspectives from other people with real life experiences. It sounds like you're in a better place which is great to hear :)
Me and most people I met who were victimized by drug users "blame addiction" in the narrow sense that we don't think the people who victimized us would have behaved that way in the absence of the drugs. I don't think the general attitude was that drug users are bad people, more that drug use can result in people acting in ways that they otherwise wouldn't. I certainly don't think using any drug reduces a person's human value.
I'm in support of targeting pathways and outcomes that I think might be similar to yours. We probably have different perspectives on some forms of harm reduction and agree on others, which I think is inevitable based on our different experiences. I think we agree that medical attention and pathways to overcoming addiction outside of jail are important ingredients to a successful recovery.
To me it's not so much about punishing drug use (jail time), it's about stopping drug addiction (intervention and recovery). For example I think intervening in such a way that a user is confirmed to get at least a few hours of sleep before potentially using meth again would be a big start.
I'll admit that I support confiscating drugs when found, but I'm not advocating that arrest is always appropriate. I am in favor of punishing selling meth, which I acknowledge is perhaps hypocritical given my other beliefs knowing that plenty of people sell to support their habits.
I do think it's important to have a mechanism of mandatory intervention, and my non-lawyer understanding is that criminalizing drugs is really the only way to put mandatory intervention on the table. I met mothers who could not force their children into rehab, for example. I should be clear that I don't feel this way about all drugs, but I think that methamphetamine specifically poses a risk to the safety of both users and people around them that merits mandatory intervention.
If we had functional mechanisms to to enact mandatory interventions for users that were non-criminal I'm definitely open to that. Depending on the targeted success rate it seems like inpatient detox + rehab would be required in many cases, and I am simply not aware of non-judicial way we can force a person into those circumstances against their will (which in the case of meth I admit I support even if that opinion is controversial).
I am not an expert, but nonetheless I'm now entangled with the topic as one that defines significant aspects of my life (loss of smell and hearing, PTSD, facial disfiguration). I think we can do better than we have been, both recently and since Nixon, but I think that having tough conversations is part of how we'll get better. My experience is that people in my situation frequently have our perspectives invalidated as "politically incorrect" or otherwise irrelevant (not what you're doing BTW thank you for your perspective), and I wanted to speak up to make sure people know that we exist and we don't want our numbers to grow.
Congratulations on your recovery, and FWIW I really like your your username/giraffes :)
I’ve never been to a support group, and you have, so take this from that perspective. It seems to me that the support group wouldn’t want outsiders dropping by to share their opinions.
Please stop incessantly committing appeal to emotion fallacies.
This is about as helpful as "please go to welfare office and tell everyone to just work harder" or "please go to a substance abuse center and tell everyone to just, you know, stop using drugs mkay?" or "please go to a prison and tell everyone that crime is bad and they just need to fly right and everything will be fine."
It seems to me like there are places where it does, and places where it doesn't. In the places where it works, everyone agrees that it works, and in the places where it doesn't, everyone agrees that it doesn't.
I'm very curious about the underlying factors for this.
It's hard, and for the record I'm also anti-prohibition about many substances (just not meth). I had weed in my pocket when I was assaulted that I campaigned to legalize in WA. I shared streets with plenty of harmless drug users too.
I'm sorry for calling you out, after seeing this comment it's obvious I would have done better to give you some space to think. It's an emotionally charged experience that I'm still learning how to rationalize years later - but haste makes waste and I was hasty.
I just want to make sure people know that victims like me exist, and though we are often treated as if our perspectives are invalid/uncouth/politically incorrect most of us simply want to stop other people from going through similar experiences. Telling people off doesn't spread that message and isn't helping bring smart ideas to the table, which I regret.
