https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-can-soon-prosecute-public-drug-use-possession/
After a summer debating a contentious drug enforcement bill, the City Council voted to allow the City Attorney’s Office to prosecute knowing possession and public use.
Archived link: https://archive.ph/04wlq
Doing absolutely nothing didn't work, so let's go back to the drug war! Maybe we can with this time!
/s To ensure nobody thinks I'm as braindead as the Seattle City Council.
It's a pretty nuanced problem. On one hand part of living in a civilized society means we should have a reasonable expectation of being able to use parks, sidewalks, and public transportation without worry of secondhand smoke inhalation and or danger.
On the other hand SPD will likely use abuse this beyond expected levels and punish people who are at no harm to others, as well as it disproportionately affecting minorities.
The root cause is obviously drug addiction/homelessness which is a fairly unsolvable problem under American capitalism. We can do things like nonpublic use decriminalization that will help, but overall it's the combination of the two that drive each other and given we have no sense of true rehabilitation here in the states the problem will probably be here to stay.
The problem isn't nuanced. There are countries like Portugal with systems for legalizing and reducing drug use, which have been working for years. We could easily emulate an intelligent country that's leading the charge, but instead we have leaders who would prefer to regress and continue a strategy that has been failing for decades.
It's not necessarily this black and white.
There are countries like Portugal with systems for legalizing and reducing drug use, which have been working for years
It's important to note that Portugal's drug law doesn't allow public use. And when using instead of being charged via the justice system they are sent to a dissuasion commission (A social worker, a psychiatrist, and an attorney) and furthermore drug addicts have the option of rehabilitation centers as well as being provided social rehabilitation. We in the states provide none of this.
So our ultimate goal here should be moving towards treating drug addiction as a Health problem and keeping it outside the Criminal Justice system. But we have no rehabilitation systems at the government level that can rehabilitate someone back into society at the level Portugal can. Upon "rehabilitation" we do not "rehab" the social aspect. We don't have any level of government infrastructure setup here on par with Portugal.
The problem is only exacerbated by a rising homeless crisis perpetuated by a massive American wealth disparity. There are very systemic issues in America that will take a lot of movement to change. This is not a simple "let's just decriminalize everything and call it good". We are slowly making progress, but in the interim, we shouldn't expect the residents of anywhere to sacrifice their own public spaces and safety, to perpetuate a neverending drug addiction/homelessness problem. We instead need to support building out this infrastructure and treating this as a mental health problem, but until the infrastructure is built we will always be sacrificing our public spaces and environments if it is allowed in public environments.
Also important to note that these are no longer felonies and are now misdemeanors. FYI I'm totally for full decriminalization outside of public environments.
The vote was met with boos and members of the public yelling, “blood on your hands” and “murderer,” and swearing at the council.
Pretty much sums it up. Baffling to me stuff like this is still getting passed when other bodies of government have effectively shown better results through helping people in need rather than persecuting people at their weakest
It's a complicated problem, can't be solved locally, but this idea's been tried a few thousand times already, and doesn't work.