"Authorities are sealing off warren-like alleyways with iron bars and fencing in parks to halt the spread of encampments. A siege mentality is taking root in nearby enclaves of pricey condos and multimillion-euro homes.... On a recent afternoon, an emaciated man in striped pants sleeping in front of a state-funded drug-use center awoke to a patrol of four officers. He sat up, then defiantly began assembling his crack pipe. Officers walked on.... Over the last 18 months, a drug encampment sprung up below a school. More homes have been burgled. One neighbor said she found a person, naked from the waist down, shooting up outside her house gate. Another had her laundry stolen three times. Residents have launched U.S.-style neighborhood watches and hired private security guards — something exceedingly rare in Europe...."
So begins "Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts" (WaPo).
The city is Porto, Portugal.
The article quotes something the Cato Institute put out in 2009: "None of the parade of horrors that decriminalization opponents in Portugal predicted, and that decriminalization opponents around the world typically invoke, has come to pass."
That's the trouble with lines. You think the line is the problem, as some people crowd at the line causing conspicuous problems. Relieve the pressure: erase the line. Then you learn how many more people that line was affecting.
There had been a vision of channeling Portugal's drug users into treatment, but:
Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab. Police were observed passing people using drugs, not bothering to cite them — a step that is supposed to lead to registration for appearances before those commissions. “Why?” replied one officer when asked why people were not being cited and referred to commissions. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because of not being authorized to speak with the press. “Because we know most of them. We’ve registered them before. Nothing changes if we take them in.”
From the comments section at WaPo:
This is a far more complicated situation than the article reveals. I am a retired American professor of Portuguese ancestry who has lived for periods of time in the country since 2005 and now lives here permanently. In 2005 I received a sabbatical to study Portugal's new decriminalization regime. The first thing needing to be said here is that the "problem", so to speak, really only appears to a significant degree in the two largest cities, Lisbon and Porto.
No mention whatsoever is made of the massive displacement of the local populace by the gentrification of these cities which has occurred as a result of government policies (local, in particular) encouraging high end development for foreign buyers and tourists. I have been to Porto every year for the past 18 years, and every single year the city looks different than it did the year before, all because of development for the foreign populace/tourism. And the locals have nowhere to go. Displacement produces misery, misery produces stress, and stress produces attempts to self medicate (i.e, drug use). Porto's mayor complains about drug use but has done little to mitigate and much to promote the policies of displacement....
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46 comments:
"This is a far more complicated situation than the article reveals. I am a retired American professor of Portuguese ancestry who has lived for periods of time in the country since 2005 and now lives here permanently."
"No mention whatsoever is made of the massive displacement of the local populace by the gentrification of these cities which has occurred as a result of government policies (local, in particular) encouraging high end development for foreign buyers and tourists."
Typical Democracy Dies in Wokeness commenter...literally and obliviously calls himself out as the cause of his adopted country's gentrification.
Total lack of self-awareness, thy name is progressivism.
You get more of what you reward. You get less of what you punish.
Funny how that works. …I think the trick with these moronic policies is getting their proponents to have “skin in the game.” Until they do, they will continue to collect the rewards (self-approbation and status points) while dodging the costs (squalor, misery, crime and death).
Where have all the flowers gone? ... When will they ever learn? When will they ev-er learn?
I spent a seek in Porto this summer, and I had been wondering how the drug legalization had gone. All I did for the whole week was walk extensively around the city, and my impression was that there was little evidence of public drug use. In fact, I saw nothing of it. In Phoenix, or Portland, or LA, the human wreckage is everywhere and can't be overlooked. I was walking 12 to 15 miles a day and in some poor neighborhoods (though admittedly, mostly not poor), and I was consciously looking for evidence of drug use because I expected to see it.
I don't doubt that the drug policy has caused problems, but it is still much nicer than any comparable US city. MUCH nicer in fact.
There are plenty of cheap and healthy ways to relieve stress that don't involve dangerous drugs.
There are even cheap and unhealthy ways, like cigarettes and alcohol.
No one ever needs to take dangerous drugs, and 'educated' people need to stop enabling this behaviour.
Displacement produces misery, misery produces stress, and stress produces attempts to self medicate (i.e, drug use).
I'm sure this is true. But "attempts to self-medicate" = "drug use" there in part because drug use is easy, ISTM. How do stressed out Americans self-medicate? Alcohol, lots of times, because it's legal, relatively cheap, and widely available.
Porto is a beautiful city. It wasn't going to go unnoticed forever. Dubrovnik is absolutely gorgeous and is starting to get noticed in a big way; this same problem, development of and for tourism and the resulting displacement of residents, is going to happen there, I'm sure. Coastal Southern California and San Francisco are unaffordable for most Californians because they were too beautiful to be left alone. Those who can't go anywhere else but can't afford to live comfortably there live miserable lives.
Cities and "destinations" have drug problems. The question is whether legalizing drug use in Portugal has made any difference, good or bad, in the drug problem that was going to be there regardless, and the commenter's comment doesn't shed any light on that question for me.
I am interested in whether their approach has had an effect on incidence of drug use and addiction, severity (in alcoholic terms, are the majority constantly buzzed or full-on passed out?), and distribution (as in, where are people using, not what kind of distribution network is there - though that would also be interesting to know). Also, is drug tourism a big thing? I would imagine it is a thing, at least.
My gut says legalizing drugs is bad, but my gut would say that.
As Western societies continue to remove the standards that held traditional families, towns, cities together, we become spectators to our own destruction. We watch as cities, states or countries that once held common standards for work, productivity, community, defense, and (dare I say) faith, now blow up into the most perverse forms of individual abasement.
Let me tattoo my entire body to make a statement. Let me cut off body parts- to make a statement. Let me pierce myself in the face, again and again, to show how independent I am. Let me ignore the past, and dwell on hours of TikTok nonsense...in nonstop 60 second sessions.
People are surprised that making hard drugs legal creates areas of heavy addiction?
I know that if I leave my garbage out the night before the county comes by to remove it, it'll be attacked and ripped open by raccoons. I know this from life experience. So I put it out in the morning.
What happens to our leaders and our citizens when confronted with homelessness, addiction, pissing and shitting in the streets, camping out in front of grade school, legalizing abhorrent behavior. And worse, praising all of it, right down to praising the cutting off of body parts from kids to make a social statement.
We are not yet there, but are reaching the nadir of Western Civilization. I know many of you think I'm way out there saying this, but...I simply let the evidence of my senses tell me what is going on- all around the Western world. We can choose this path, or we can choose civilization. And civilization requires standards, and being adult enough to say, 'no' sometimes. Adult enough to make hard decisions and stand by them. Not socially 'liked' decisions, but adult decisions that may not please many who want no standards.
We have no shortage of middle aged and older people, but we do have a shortage of adults. And frankly, when a society has more non-productive people than it has productive people, that society ceases to exist. Get busy living or get busy dying, folks.
My GF and I spent the month of February in a VRBO in a small fishing village on the southern coast of Portugal, maybe 30 miles from Spain. We were up and down the southern coast and the nearby mountain towns, and also spent five days in Lisbon. I don't recall seeing a single example of public drug use, not even in Lisbon where we walked, took trolleys, and cabbed (is that a word?) all over the city.
Maybe it was there, but we didn't see it.
“That's the trouble with lines. You think the line is the problem, as some people crowd at the line causing conspicuous problems. Relieve the pressure: erase the line. Then you learn how many more people that line was affecting.”
Are we talking about legalizing drugs, or border security?
coming soon! To a neighborhood park near you!! (or your backyard!!! (or your living room!!!!))
once everyone in the world, is addicted to government supplied narcotics..
EVERYONE will support the government! (or, loose their access to their narcotics :)
Arguments from both sides come down to faith, because it’s impossible to disambiguate the effects of gentrification from the effects of decriminalization. Thousands of years of experience, however, suggests that the decriminalization is the problem.
(sorry for the multiple posts!)
the "problem", so to speak, really only appears to a significant degree in the two largest cities, Lisbon and Porto.
the "problem" only "appears" there, because?
a) it's more concealed in smaller towns?
b) you just haven't LOOKED? (no one is So Blind...)
c) you're just telling tales?
The new ways of handling old problems sure results in a lot of surprises. Surprises loudly anticipated and announced by conservatives before the party begins.
It's hard to find a success in these problem solving programs. Unless the goal is to spread taxpayer money far and wide to friends that will send part of it back via donations.... in that case we're doing swell.
Pro tip: Subsidize what you want. Penalize what you do not want.
The cure for addiction would be abdiction.
Also, I've never heard hands described as "gaunt." It distracted me. But I've heard hands described as "chubby," so, why not?
What a worthless comment by the "professor". Oh, gee its such a little problem. We should be talking about overdevelopment - that's more important. At least he didn't pull the ol' "We need to get to the root the problem, which is [fill in blank]"
How is drug decriminalization helping anyone? The true motivation isn't "Gosh, lets have freedom..." Its really "just screw those weak poor/ill people. Putting them in jail or forcing them to get help is just too much trouble. So, here's your drugs and a card if want to change. Bye."
A certain percentage of society will become hopeless addicts unless you keep drugs from them. We save them from themselves by having laws against drug use and selling them. I won't even go into the immorality of getting rich by selling addicts heroin, coccaine, meth, etc.
Surprise.
Addicts will do literally anything to get their fix. They either find their bottom an seek recovery, or they die.
It is very binary.
News at 11. “Compassionate” Drug strategies always fail spectacularly. See California for how to guide. Even the Netherlands has cracked down on use too.
Addicts need help - but they need firm rules and consequences too.
I love Portugal. Cry me a river, or change your government.
Just in Portugal and Spain on a very touristy trip. Two days in Porto and didn’t see any of the drug issue (not that I would have on this kind of trip). Portugal is getting hit on both ends from immigration. Poor immigrants crowding out the low end for jobs and housing. One driver complained about this—like discussions you hear in the States about immigrants stealing jobs. On the upper end, Portugal is very affordable vs. the US or most of the rest of Europe. Very beautiful and so the wealthy are moving there--buying up property on the high(er) end. One example. A high school classmate just moved there after deciding Hawaii had gotten too expensive. Not particularly wealthy but wealthy enough. Also interesting discussion about seasonal workers in the vineyards. Had been a lot of Ukrainians until the war. Now hard to find seasonal workers.
"Now the rainman gave me two cures
Then he said, “Jump right in”
The one was Texas medicine
The other was just railroad gin
An’ like a fool I mixed them
An’ it strangled up my mind
An’ now people just get uglier
An’ I have no sense of time"
It is shocking to hear so little concern about what drugs do to human beings. How is it compassionate to facilitate drug use when you know drugs steal human agency and lead to death? We read about the sad case of DeNiro’s grandson and identify the street pills laced with fentanyl as the problem? DeNiro and the kids parents knew he was doing drugs. Yet they “loved” him?
We’re doing the same thing to those with gender dysphoria. Just given them the drugs and cut off body parts and send them on their way.
The first thing taught in Ec10 is usually People respond to incentives. Many people wouldn't be caught dead near an economics class, apparently...
Areas revitalized by investment means owners gain from higher property values. The people who whine about gentrification are renters and misanthropes. The worst were the New Yorkers complaining about not having to risk their lives leaving their apartments every morning. Well, the risk is back, so there you go...
Mao had dealers shot in public and drug abusers sent to re-education camps to work in rice paddies. So perhaps we can stop a bit short of that. But public drug abuse is a problem. Why not house all drug addicts in mandatory re-education camps where they can have all the drugs they want, free, with food and clothes and shelter, or get treatment, their choice? Fentanyl is inexpensive, and self medication with it eventually has a resolution. Let the addicts be addicts, just not in public.
ANOTHER complete and utter failure by "experts".
Drug addicts will do anything they want to if the authorities let them. They'll camp on the streets, in the parks and in the freeway green belts. Assaulting people, perhaps murdering them, shoplifting, robbery. The progressive, aka neobarbarian, leaders say "We have to be kind to these poor people", and don't give a damn for how the druggies' behavior drives out the good people. Then the "authorities" are surprised when no one comes downtown, business leave and the tax revenue plummets.
This is happening in the big cities of the West Coast, from San Diego to Seattle. Allowing the druggies to do anything they want is not humane. Humane actions would be:
- Make them pick up their tents and move on. Repeat as necessary.
- Arrest and PROSECUTE them for their crimes
- Offer drug treatment as an alternative to jail.
- Stop supplying them with drug paraphernalia.
- Stop funding the Homeless Industrial Complex, whose mission is to keep the druggies on the street.
I was just in Porto. Evidence of drug sales and use, while visible, is perhaps one-tenth what you see in America. The more important dynamic is that Portugal is finally making the transition from traditional pre-capitalism to modernity (a change that occurred more than a hundred years ago in countries like France). The idea that Americans (of all people) would have useful advice on how to handle that transition gracefully is laughable (in a black comedy sort of way).
Temujin @ 7:40: Eloquent. This really struck me; "let me tattoo my entire body to make a statement. Let me cut off body parts to make a statement..." What this exposes is the "performativity" of these pathologies. They make no sense unless "you" (your intentional self, running your own physical corpus) have an audience to whom a statement can be made.
Of course there IS NO AUDIENCE. Nobody --an intentional self with a physical corpus like yourself-- is standing or sitting there waiting to observe your performance.
This is all some kind of self-delusion (although greatly augmented, seconded, encouraged, induced by some others --who are they? And do they have your interests foremost? Really?). You can back away from this, find a better way. Wake up. There is no audience except the one you invented in your narcissistic haze.
WAKE UP.
Tim says it's impossible to disambiguate, then immediately plows ahead and does so.
I admire your glib certainty, sir; for myself, I suspect this is more likely to be one of those "embrace the power of AND" situations.
Critter : It is shocking to hear so little concern about what drugs do to human beings. How is it compassionate to facilitate drug use when you know drugs steal human agency and lead to death?
Yes! It's talked about as if these people are enjoying a party! But no, it's incredibly sad. I walk every day in a park with people passed out, pants falling down, hair matted, smelling like pee. But geez drugs looks so fun in a Seth Rogan movie, let's just legalize them and let people do them in public.
I have been haunted lately by the movie biopics of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston...and I just think what is wrong with us that we watch these celebrities get consumed by drugs and just die? Over and over again.
Society was not placed here for homeless druggies to feed on, to fashion themselves into its burden. Society was placed here at the end of a long road featuring bare subsistence, disease, famine, war, brutality, and short, nasty, miserable lives. Society was placed here through labor, determination, contribution both material and spiritual, sweat, and a sense of gratitude. Society is the product of the survivor's grit, toward better survival. Addicts are not owed anything.
For a while my daughter lived in what should have been a great neighborhood - brand new apartments, small village-like specialist mall nearby, potentially a nice genteel urban setting. But competing big money interests decided that part of the city needed to be starved and the investment devalued, if not destroyed. So they converted an old terminal into a homeless shelter, with free food and a 'look the other way' drug policy. Within months, the streets were lined with homeless people, growing their sidewalk squalor by the day, with a nightly pilgrimage streaming from all directions to the shelter for a meal and a bed. Crime flourished; every time we went to visit her, it would be to the sight of flashing lights and police activity. It was all an artificially-contrived disaster, and the small mall suffered greatly from the daily tide of human dregs - as did the rents in those nice new apartments. I was very happy when she moved out. But I have nothing but contempt for civic leaders that not only allow, but promote and underwrite such behaviors.
Gentrification: is there anything it can't do?
The amount of money governments spend to keep the least productive members of society alive and defecating in doorways or sprawled out unconscious in the middle of the sidewalk, it fascinates me, how this happens. And how we all tolerate it.
Has there been any other time in history when those charged with the public purse behaved in this way? Maybe it's equivalent to governments or those in charge in the past draining away money and resources to go fight pointless wars or to build elaborate monuments to themselves. This is the modern day Taj Mahal maybe?
There's a new drug on the street, it's called tranq, it's a mix of a horse drug called Xylazine and I guess heroin or some other opiod, or maybe it's mixed with fentanyl. Anyway, it rots the users' skin, pieces of the body start falling off. And --most unfortunate- because Xylazine is not an opiod, Narcan doesn't work. Tranq, it's a big hit apparently, a real wonder drug.
One of the criticisms of the space program was that it cost a lot of money for very little return and that the government should be using those funds for Head Start or food stamps or whatever. Think of all the DEI programs that could be funded with the money spent on trying to keep these drug addicts alive (not functioning, just alive).
There is a profound conservatism behind the objections to "gentrification" and the insistence that communities must be insulated from change.
Drugs cause a lot of problems. Or rather, people using drugs causes a lot of problems.
Sex also causes a lot of problems. Or rather, people seeking sex cause a lot of problems.
Should sex be legal?
Milton Friedman famously said that you can't have both a welfare state and open borders. You also can't have legal addictive drugs and a welfare state, especially if it tolerates people living on the streets. You're basically subsidizing anti-social behavior.
Addicts need help - but they need firm rules and consequences too.
Alcoholics Anonymous disagrees with you.
The professor blames outsiders moving in and displacing locals, but I wonder how many of the druggies are outsiders attracted by the easy access to drugs.
"ANOTHER complete and utter failure by "experts"."
Breaking News:
Study by Experts Concludes Incontrovertibly -- There are no Experts
Being addicted to anything is not good for the person addicted or the folks around them that have to deal with the addiction. That said, would you rather have the addicted person dealing with criminals that feed the addiction without control, or would you rather have them feeding the addiction without dealing with criminals? I truly believe that the decision is binary. I had also thought that similar logic led to the 21st ammendment repealing the 18th ammendment that prohibited alcohol in the United States.
If it is legal, then getting help is no worse than an alcoholic getting help. If it is illegal, then there is the additional problem of having to admit to a crime before you can get help... if you want it.
Shouldn't we focus on the causes that drive people to overcome their education to indulge in something that might become an addiction?
The real problem with "decriminalizing" drugs? The utter failure to allow natural consequence to follow. If you'd have set the policies such that all drugs were legal, then in pretty short order, all the people who were likely abusers would have abused them and then eliminated themselves from the population. You'd also have the salutary lessons of their deaths from drug use delivered to the rest of the general public.
The real failure here with this policy is thinking that you can have a nice half-way house between liberty to use drugs, and some happy-dappy situation where there are zero consequences for doing so. Eliminate Narcan and all the protections, let nature take its course, and you'll have the predicted results of drug legalization. So long as you're too squeamish to do that, well... Yeah. It ain't going to work.
So long as the average teenager thinks "drugs are cool, 'mmkay?", you're going to have this problem. And, the kids think that drugs are cool and acceptable because they see all the cool kids using them without consequence. If they saw the reality of what drug use did to people, they'd have a different attitude towards them.
I don't think anyone sets out to be a drug addict living in squalor. They start out thinking that it's fun times, and then ruin their lives. They do that on their own, reaching conclusions based on their own fantasies, which we feed into by doing our best to "save" the addicted from themselves, instead of honestly writing them off as what they've self-chosen, which is to be human wreckage.
Ban Narcan. Hot and cold running fentanyl in the streets, until all the addictive-personality types use it and die. Allow natural consequences to flow, observably.
That's how you have to manage decriminalizing drugs. Some half-wit mixed policy won't work.
Frankly, I'd go so far as to criminalize Narcan possession and use on everyone but first responders and other inadvertent victims. Ya wanna shoot up? Deal with the consequences, baby...
Not all drug users are drug addicts. I get a very nice five or six hour high from 10mg of Oxy. Been doing it once a week for several years. NEVER more than once a week.
Since giving up alcohol five years ago, I've never craved it. I do miss the buzz that goes along with it, though.
Unfortunately, getting a doctor who will write an order for Oxy these days is hell. You basically need good liar skills and, even then, everyone looks on you with pity or disgust. That's a damn shame. Since the anti-opioid era began, perscriptions have gone down by about 50 percent. However overdose deaths have sky-rocketed. Why? Because people who benefit from it for a variety of reasons are now getting it somewhere other than legit pharmacies.
When I lived in LA late 70s - early 80s Everyone was doing a little blow. Some people had terrible problems but the vast majority were living interesting and productive lives.
@ Colonel Mustard,
I have to wonder what friends and family would say about those "interesting and productive" lives. I can't say that very many of my drug-enabled friends, family members, and acquaintances are leading "interesting and productive" lives. They're mostly unreliable, unproductive, and delusional about the effects of what they take and how they behave while "self-medicated". I don't think that effective decriminalization has helped them one damn bit; if anything, a surreptitious habit they didn't talk about has now become fodder for providing the people whose trust and reliance they abuse with daily updates as to what substance they're trying, now. The MDMA, for example, enhances empathy such that they manage to completely miss their obligations to their business partners. It's all self-indulgence, all the way down.
My rather exhausted take on it all? Either use and shut up about it, or use and then end your drug-addled life. I'm tired of dealing with the fallout from these self-indulgent assholes.
And, in the end? That's all it is. Self-indulgence.
Ahh, the mythical “high “ and “buzz” that people get from drugs and alcohol. Wait.. mythical? What do you mean by that?
Everybody’s body is different and reacts in different ways. I have no clue what high and buzz mean in regards to drugs and alcohol.
Have I been drunk? Yeah, more than once. And I have to get there by planning else I stop after 2 drinks. How do I feel when I get there? No different than when sober except I am fully aware I shouldn’t be driving or walking a balance beam.
And oxy? I get a10 day supply once a year from the VA- officially for back pain, a service connected disability. Right now I have more than a “weeks” supply. Didn’t finish up last year’s batch. What happens when I take oxy? Either it kills the pain I’m having or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t I don’t take it again for that pain. There are reflex exercises on Al Gore’s internet. I’ve checked- No before and after difference after 10 mg oxycodone. No high either like Colonel Mustard enjoys.
I’m going in for a colonoscopy in a month. When the anesthesia takes effect I’ll be under, and when it wears off I’ll be awake. No drowsy floaty period that I’ve witnessed others going through. My reflexes will be off for a while, but as soon as done I’ll be going out to lunch with my daughter who’s the designated driver this year.
Freely available and widely used drugs- without consequence for any bad behavior from using them- is harmful to every society that’s allowed it. Period. This includes alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco though, is mostly harmless to those not using it. Unless some drunk idiot falls asleep while smoking and sets the house afire.
And alcohol- the original truth drug. Let’s be totally honest. Our revolution was fueled by alcohol. Those who can’t handle and limit their consumption shouldn’t be using. They’re also the ones least aware they can’t handle it and that’s a problem for society around them. You’d probably be able to reduce the drunk driving episodes if you applied the death penalty to any drunk driver where personal injury occurred or a second conviction with over 2.0 BAC. Hardy, yes. But so what?
I can see the positive results of moderate drinking in a crowd of people though I get nothing out of it myself. I’ve also witnessed a crowd of people getting high on marijuana. That same conviviality isn’t there.
Colonel Mustard is engaging in elaborate self deception when he states only some had terrible problems but most were living interesting and productive lives. Let’s look at Hunter. Interesting life? Certainly. Productive? Kicked out of the Navy within months for drug use. No one can point to anything productive he’s done in his entire adult life. He survives because of the enablers around him.
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