The driver behind WA's drug/crime/homeless problems...

[PS90]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

I don't have a problem with someone doing drugs....
It's when they inevitably lose their job and wind up homeless and:
1. They run your kids over going the wrong way down the highway at 100mph running from the police or crime scene.
2. They stab a middle school boy in the eye for his bicycle and the $20 his mom gave him for a Saturday afternoon movie.
3. They rob the stores blind to the point that they have to lock up everything, there is no shopping carts, and they have to raise prices 20%.
4. They OD repeatedly, tie up emergency services, end up in the hospital, attack the staff and other patients, cannot be refused service, and do not pay, reducing the quality and availability of medical care for the rest of us.
5. They crap, urinate in public, and leave needles and trash everywhere.
6. Break into your vehicle or home (again).
7. Stab/Shoot each other and/or innocent bystanders.
8. Would you like about 50 more?...

9. My female co-worker gets off work to find a guy standing comatose next to her car with his pants around his ankles and no underwear. And this is in our little town of Colville.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by PS90

9. My female co-worker gets off work to find a guy standing comatose next to her car with his pants around his ankles and no underwear. And this is in our little town of Colville.

Yup, this is the new normal, saw where they just coned off a guy passed out in the parking lot on SLLS.

[MechAndy]

But what’s he hurting ?

[norman_w]

Tacoma. An old lady went to all the 711s convenience stores and asked the dealers to move it on, there were kids and families around here. They did. She cleaned up the neighborhood. Alone. Nobody helped her.

[jertheber]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...6fff54e6&ei=31

"The Washington Supreme Court in 2021 struck down a state law making drug possession a felony. It was unconstitutional, the court said, because it did not require prosecutors to prove that someone knowingly had the drugs. Washington was the only state in the country without that requirement."

A democrat controlled house voted down SB 5536, a compromise to get things under control with "infringing on the freedom" of druggies.

"Drugs Inc", has a Seattle episode. It goes into how the dealers play the system by only possessing small amounts on their person, selling until they get caught (and released), then rotated out to another city by their cartel. The greater Seattle area is a $1.6 million a day drug market.

Where were you during the fifty years of heavy handed drug sales/possession laws? Doing the same thing while expecting different results won't work, we need a total review of the drug addiction dilemma and more police intervention has shown to be a prison filler to the exclusion of all other crimes. For what it's worth, "Drugs Inc" and other edu-tainment type TV productions are lacking a more in depth scholarly view of the entirety of our drug problems, and therefore, come up short on solutions while leaning heavily towards a more sensationalist entertaining take on a serious problem.

What drives drug addiction is a complex pile of social factors, not the legality or lack of it with regard to drug sales and usage. We should be looking at every chance we can get to eradicate the role of the drug dealers, drug cartels are huge criminal enterprises thanks to the illegality of drugs and their use. State control of sales and usage is one path, realizing that drug addiction is a medical issue and not a law enforcement problem will also go a long way towards giving the police an opportunity to return to fighting real crime, which all too often has it's origins in the illegal status of drugs.

Vancouver Wa police force has seen fit to drop out of the joint county/city drug enforcement task force in order to concentrate on violent crime. I think we'll see more of this in the future as we become more informed as to the amount of police resources we have dedicated to the drug market. We've spent billions trying to do something to curb the ill effects of drug addiction, and as the money flowed the problem only grew.

That's a huge clue as to the nature of addiction and the futility of putting police on the front line of morals enforcement. Yes, that moral angle IS a big part of the problem. Those who see drugs as the worst evil are the same type of person who felt that booze was the Devil's work and outlawed it, only to see the rise of America's biggest crime wave, not to mention the explosive growth of American organized criminal gangs. We can either learn from our past or be doomed to repeat it...

https://www.columbian.com/news/2022/...ug-task-force/

[Night Gale]

Originally Posted by PhoenixSomeday

That's already how it was for me growing up in the 80s and 90s. School, TV, head-on-straight adults. It was all over the place. Same with smoking. But people start doing these things anyway, despite knowing all of this already.

ABC Afterschool Special. This is your brain on drugs - any questions? Just Say No!

Simpler times.

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

But what’s he hurting ?

Himself and the tax payers who have to support him and the result of his habit.