"You're talking to me": How do we determine from which POV we're looking from? Seems like the POV is from whomever sends this picture, so wouldn't that mean that we're looking through OPs eyes? CMV

But who was phone?

Weren't the French pretty salty about the UK? I recall seeing some articles on punishing the UK for leaving

I bring up homelessness because its relatable to what ive seen personally and can see where rehabilitation can do the most good. To me, they arent too far from each other. It sucks seeing communities struggling with suffering, needles all over the place and what amounts to people looking like zombies in the street. It's sad and ruins communities. In the link I attached there is a correlation between homelessness and drug use. Without proper treatment and intervention many will OD and their issues will go unresolved. I don't understand what you mean by casual relationship. There clearly is a correlation from what I've read. Do you have any data to prove otherwise?

I guess the crux of the issue is I just simply don't think full legalization of all drugs is a good idea. Hard drugs are bad for the community at large you can take a look at these studies https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/05/30/as-fatal-overdoses-rise-many-americans-see-drug-addiction-as-a-major-problem-in-their-community/ If you have some links to studies I'll gladly take a look at them that say otherwise.

I like the idea of harm reduction but I think that's one step of the larger approach of dealing with drug addiction.

Okay, so I have been misinterpreting decriminalization. I looked up some statistics and found this website that was helpful. In a nutshell I agree with decriminalization, however it seems like Oregon may not have implemented the law in a meaningful way, in my opinion. It's not a comprehensive approach to getting people help and stops at offering a drug screening (which seems like a non-solution) or a fine. May people never get a screening and many never pay the fine, so nothing actually happens. So on other words, Oregon politicians passed a meaningless bill. Portugal seems to have done a better job with this and it's a shame politicians can't look to places that work to emulate their laws.

https://www.publichealthdegrees.org/resources/drugs-decriminalization-and-public-health/

I don't think that this should be a legalization issue. To your point, prison is not the solution. I think its about what you do after a user is detained temporarily. Instead of prison people need to be sent to rehab centers.

You need a legal backing to get these people help. Decriminalization means there's no legal backing to provide services to these people, oftentimes they don't want help. Like the article mentioned, no one ever bothers calling the helpline. Why would they? They either don't want to or cant. With a court order they can be taken care of, usually through tax payer money. Initially this may cost a decent amount of money but could fix the problem over time.

Related to my other post, what I'm trying to say is that these programs are all important and I agree that these parts are often overlooked in legislation. My argument though is that these programs by themselves also won't fix these issues. You sometimes need to court mandate these people to use these services. Maybe after being detained for illegal use they are sent to a rehab center for a certain amount of time, then they are released from rehab but need to checkin at a clinic at certain intervals to ensure they're on their meds and so on. There needs to be a legal system in place to ensure these people get the care they need because many don't bother or can't get the care on their own.

Yeah, I agree putting people in prison won't solve addiction but that's why I mentioned what I somewhat remember Maine doing. It's about having a path towards rehabilitation (not in prison). Essentially you temporarily book offenders, then they get a court mandated ruling to go to these clinics to get better while they have consistent checkups. This way they get to stay out of prison while receiving treatment. I guess what I'm saying is you need the law to allow temporary detainment and to enable court rulings of certain treatments that otherwise many offenders would not receive otherwise. The problem I see isn't with these situations it's that oftentimes legislators are too lazy to implement laws that work to implement steps after being detained/fined. It's lazy to put people in jail and also to simply decriminalize substances. Because when substances are decriminalized you have no legal leg to stand on when you need to force treatment and to your point being sent to prison doesn't help either.

Have you heard of the five stages of grief? That's probably the best first way to deal with it. No capitalist/socialist/fascist/technocratic/authoritarian utopia will be able to fix that. I don't believe there is a better system yet than what the western world already has. Maybe one day UBI will exist and everyone will have more freedom to enjoy their passions but even then it you'll still have to work most of your life.

Best you can do is figure out what you want out of your life and take the steps to do it. Like what most people have said, living below your means helps with funding your goals and protecting yourself against accidents. Find ways to do what you want now but know there's always a trade off. It isn't fair but I don't think it ever has been, except for a very privileged class of people.

I used to vape in college but afterwards decided to quit. Part of what made quoting easier was moving away and breaking from routine because for me it became a part of my day-to-day. The other thing that helped me was doing cardio. Running would suck so hard because my lungs had a hard time keeping up. That shitty feeling also helped push through cravings.

Amazing

Even normal people know that Italians are made of spaghetti