In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html

by mitchbob • 7 years ago

252 454 7 years ago

sprafa2• 7 years ago

So same as Portugal has been doing for decades - decriminalise small use and treat it as a public health problem instead of making average citizens into criminals.

Portugal has a lot of bad things to it, but having no war on drugs has made it into one of the most peaceful countries on earth. And marijuana usage is pretty low, Last I checked. Why? Probably because it’s not a special thing.

I’ve always pondered why they only did it there, and I’ve been routinely disappointed to move to the Uk and understand how horrible the drug problem is here. People take ketamine and OD in toilets here.

allana12• 7 years ago

Washington State is one of the heaviest users of legal marijuana: https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/sewage-t...

I doubt we will ever reach Portugal's low levels of use, but people can lead happy & productive lives while having chemical dependencies.

The UK's war on drugs and party culture surrounding ket and others is kinda sad to watch :c

proverbialbunny3• 7 years ago

Portugal's use spiked up in the same way for a few years before ramping down. Most places who legalize experience the same sort of spike then a reduction.

SlowRobotAhead4• 7 years ago

Is it the same thing?

The article is about just not enforcing the law. Portugal changed their laws.

sprafa2• 7 years ago

Well my impressions is that they de facto trying to adjust while keeping de jure the same situation. I did not read the whole article however, just skimmed it as fast as I could.

allana12• 7 years ago

As much as the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the local Sinclair affiliates might scream that Seattle is wrecked, people and businesses are still moving here, our economy is growing, and massive redevelopment is occuring.

One other place to pay attention to is Shelton, WA, they have a very interesting communal approach to homelessness and providing services, which has built a strong community that wooed some of my friends to buy and retire in Shelton.

throwaway8273643• 7 years ago

People move here and the economy is growing because of tech. Do any of these employers support the city of Seattle’s policies on allowing people to openly shoot up in the streets?

fzeroracer4• 7 years ago

The fact is that visibility is the first step to recovery. You can arrest them, hide them or try to move them around but it doesn't change the fact that they exist. It just makes it so you don't have to look at the problem, which is really the American thing. Better to hide the problem than solve it.

These kind of efforts take time to take root. As people do things like this in public, that means more opportunity for social services to reach out and try to solve the problem. In 10-15 years you'll see drug usage rates drop as addicts can seek help for their problem without vilification or risk to having their lives destroyed.

allana12• 7 years ago

Its significantly safer than San Diego & Irvine IMO, both of which still criminalize homelessness and have had Hepatitis outbreaks due to these ineffective policies.

Google, Apple, Expedia and Facebook are each building and hiring thousands here in Seattle, our homeless are significantly less aggressive than those I encounter in California.

entropea4• 7 years ago

You sound like you walk around in daylight just seeing people shooting up on every street. Its absolutely not true. Its actually really tough to find someone shooting drugs unless you're really looking at night hours. It's honestly not as big of an issue as Sinclair makes it out to be.

daenz2• 7 years ago

people and businesses are still moving here, our economy is growing, and massive redevelopment is occuring.

Yes, despite these massive social problems. The economic growth is not caused by drug decriminalization, so I'm not sure why you're loosely associating the two. One uncorrelated bad thing is not seen as the "price" for another uncorrelated good thing.

taurath4• 7 years ago

Interesting take on the situation - one key difference is I don’t feel any less safe now than 10 years ago walking around. I DO see more “open” use, and people walking around obviously on something, especially by the homeless (which makes sense even if they’re not using at a higher level). I don’t see the social services much though. IMO they could use more visibility. The prevailing opinion seems like we do “nothing”.

I’d like to see the stats on mortality and quality of life to those that get treatment though. It can’t be worse than locking nonviolent people up.

allana12• 7 years ago

We don't have sufficent funding of social services to provide navigation teams and counselors to all of the visibly homeless (those you see on the street), never mind the thousands living in their cars in Seattle (the invisible homeless).

Seattle is doing what it can, but we need state and federal action to go further. We can't single handedly solve the severe wealth stratification that is worsening day by day :c

empath752• 7 years ago

or you know, Amazon and Microsoft could throw in some cash.

_jal• 7 years ago

I don’t see the social services much though.

What are you expecting, naxolone-wielding ninjas? Most social service work happens in offices, shelters, medical facilities and various volunteer orgs.

I certainly agree that we could do with a lot more of it.

magashna• 7 years ago

The article mentions how it's difficult to reallocate the money saved on the court/prison system to the public health needs. Imagine what could be done if the same amount of money going towards imprisoning someone was instead spent on social services. Instead its easier for our politicians to stay "rah-rah" on punitive action.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

Imagine if we funded schools so kids could learn useful skills, and raised a progressive income tax so the working poor could keep more of what they earn!

entropea4• 7 years ago

Interesting take on the situation - one key difference is I don’t feel any less safe now than 10 years ago walking around.

Exactly. I don't feel unsafe walking around Seattle at all, even with junkies screaming their heads off. You learn that they're in their own universe and don't really care about you.

SlowRobotAhead4• 7 years ago

I don’t feel any less safe now than 10 years ago walking around

As someone who has trained and trained with police... I can tell you those words are dangerous. So many people who gets their lives upturned by some mostly preventable event has used those words.

Pay attention, no matter where you live. Personally if people are shooting up near me and the police are selectively enforcing the law, “feel safe” isn’t going to be in my vocabulary, but I don’t know you or what your situation is. That’s just my view from being aware of how fast things can go bad.

arikr• 7 years ago

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opin...

This link above might bypass the paywall.

daenz2• 7 years ago

TLDR: by letting mentally disturbed addicts roam the streets with impunity, shunning social services, assaulting toddlers[0].

0. https://mynorthwest.com/1458667/seattle-offender-coffee-todd...

i_am_nomad• 7 years ago

“Some of them, I’m sure, are good people.”

dymk5• 7 years ago

I am just astounded that this is being spun in such a positive light. It absolutely has had a negative impact on public safety here. They're offered public services, and they refuse them, because many of our "tiny villages" have no-drug-use policies, which they will not abide by.

My city has one of the worst problems with repeat violent drug addicts in the nation (perhaps aside from the Bay) and yet we refuse to jail those who attack members of the public.

Just a few weeks ago we released a known violent repeat offender who four days later tossed a hot coffee on an infant.

Up in Ballard we released a guy who then chased people down with a pitchfork. Another is intent on assaulting the new Park Couriers who's job it is to keep people from open-using heroin in our public parks.

There's a guy down at an I-5 onramp in downtown who keeps trying to throw small women off the overpass. He keeps failing at doing so, and the cops say "Can't do anything, he hasn't actually thrown somebody off". I guess we'll just wait until he succeeds.

Oh well. I guess we'll just keep pointing these people towards social services, which they'll refuse again, lock them up for some token amount of time, and wait for them to harm the public again.

trentnix• 7 years ago

Often reality doesn’t fit the narrative, comrade.

dang2• 7 years ago

Maybe not, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

taurath4• 7 years ago

Do you have any statistics to back that up (violence rate)? I don’t feel like anecdotes make for good conversation here.

allana12• 7 years ago

They don't have statistics to back their position, this attitude of not working from the data we have is such an issue that it has become local satire in Seattle: http://theneedling.com/2019/02/05/magnolia-named-worlds-most...

tjr225• 7 years ago

Yeah I mean, without statistics his anecdotes are meaningless. It's a common thing to complain here in Seattle, but having lived in the Midwest for most of my life I know what true violence looks like and feels like. I don't hear guns every night like I did in KC. There aren't 600 murders a year like in Chicago. I'm not saying Seattle is perfect but I've never felt safer.

And I live in the Central District, which is one of the more violent neighborhoods.

dymk5• 7 years ago

Do you need statistics to tell you that it's wrong to not prosecute violent repeat offenders?

vkou3• 7 years ago

What about all the people who aren't running around with pitchforks who have been diverted out of the addiction to prison pipeline?

Would you rather be paying $100,000+ a year/person to judge and jail them for the crime of being addicted while poor? (I've yet to see people entering that pipeline for the crime of being addicted while rich.)

dymk5• 7 years ago

Well that's a gross misrepresentation of what I said, and a really weird dichotomy to boot.

I said that these violent addicts are refusing offered social services, yet we let them walk around and continue to harm the public.

lr4444lr• 7 years ago

False dilemma. We can mandate them by court order to attend treatment programs. There are ways of helping petty criminals that don't involve locking them in a box 24/7.

paggle3• 7 years ago

Just looked up the hot coffee case. It could only happen in a city with strict gun laws. In Texas someone would have enacted his sheriff fantasies on this perpetrator a long time ago.

grogenaut2• 7 years ago

Seattle, part of Washington, actually has concealed carry as legal. There is no duty to retreat either, no real different than any "gun friendly" state. So your point is invalid. Anyone can have loaded carry pistol, this shows you to be pointless in this example.

I assume you're just trying to troll and failing badly.

timdev23• 7 years ago

What strict gun laws in Seattle are you referring to, exactly?

mieseratte3• 7 years ago

He keeps failing at doing so, and the cops say "Can't do anything, he hasn't actually thrown somebody off".

How does that play out such that they can't get him on some type of assault / harassment? Is he politely asking these women if they would like to be thrown off the overpass and politely walking off when they demur?

dymk5• 7 years ago

Oh sorry, they actually can do something; in fact they've caught-and-released this guy three times before finally saying "Maybe he is dangerous": https://www.seattlepi.com/local/crime/article/Charge-Man-att...

But I'm not holding my breath for them to actually put him away, given their past decisions to not separate him from the public.

jacobush2• 7 years ago

The cops probably noted the victim was a woman. No big deal?

notus3• 7 years ago

Solving community problems come with community sacrifices. I'm a big proponent of housing first, drug rehab second. It is exponentially harder to get clean without housing and a support network. Decriminalizing drug addiction is a good step in that direction IMO. I think another side of this coin though is we need to bring back institutionalization of mental health care. Implemented today it would be vastly different from the 80's and before because our understanding of therapy has gone from stirring up and injecting memories into people to cognitive behavioral therapy which is very much a feel good form of therapy. I question your statement about the guy on the 1-5 ramp attempting to throw small women off the overpass. How is attempted defined here? Does he grab them? If so he would definitely be arrested for battery charges. I get the impression he is probably chasing them and saying he is going to do it. That seems like a legitimate reason to get someone mental health help but not a legitimate reason to incarcerate someone. As long as we have this gaping hole in our system that just ignores mental health problems or tries to categorize them as criminal we will continue to have this problem.

Source on housing first being effective: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.94.4...

awakeasleep2• 7 years ago

Housing first is effective for people who want our idea of a 'normal lifestyle'

I think people in this thread are asking you to question your assumption- do you think every drug addict on the west coast wants to hold down a job and live our normal life?

cavisne4• 7 years ago

Here's more details on I-5 guy,

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/crime/article/Charge-Man-att...

So he only

* pepper sprayed someone

* punched multiple people in the face

This wasnt enough for him to be charged.

michaelmrose5• 7 years ago

Having had to deal with issues in Seattle myself and having had family members that were the victims of crime in Seattle I'm sympathetic however can't we do a better job of dealing with the violent and deal with addicts without throwing them into an oubliette?

Regarding the idiot trying to throw women over the overpass. Your statement is in error. It's a crime to try to harm people as well and he has in fact been arrested repeatedly.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-trying-to-...

The problem is they keep dismissing the charges because he is incompetent AND not locking him up for everyone's safety not that they haven't arrested him.

They are currently trying to figure out what to do with him this time now

19-1-02095-1 SEA STATE OF WASHINGTON VS WILSON, JONATHAN JAMES Criminal - Active

https://dja-prd-ecexap1.kingcounty.gov/?q=node/405/2696881/F...

Lets hope they decide to do something smarter this time.

unethical_ban2• 7 years ago

I think the tough call needs to be made that when someone is obviously mentally ill, homeless and without proper sane supervision, the State should institutionalize them indefinitely.

dan_quixote2• 7 years ago

For the people you describe, there are basically no social services. The typical cycle is: 1 - police arrest them 2 - if they seem psychotic or mentally troubled they get dropped off at an ER 3 - the social workers at the ER (mostly) unsuccessfully try to find a place for them at a mental health provider 4 - eventually they get released by court order 5 - cycle repeats

I have friend that is on the front line as a social worker. Any time one of these prominent incidents occurs, I make sure to ask if she knows the perp. And about 50% of the time they are a former patient that she couldn't find a spot for at a mental institution.

thomascgalvin3• 7 years ago

In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox.

America's puritanical urges result in more self-harm than anything else. So much of the way our nation is structured is based on some ancient idea that you have to live clean and work hard in order to get to heaven. That is combined with a sense of justified sadism: if we catch someone not living up to these ideals, it is appropriate to punish them, and appropriate to take pleasure in punishing them.

The War on Drugs was never about public health. It was about 1. controlling minorities, and 2. moral superiority. So there's absolutely no surprise that a health-based approach is showing better results than a punishment-based approach.

cat199• 7 years ago

.. and so further, the pre-determined dualism argues, if you aren't up to being 'perfect', you obvously must be a 'bad person', creating an internal self-shame which can't easily be dealt with, other than conforming to the 'bad' archetype..

drcode2• 7 years ago

If you think there is more drug-related crime and public heroin injections in "puritan" US cities like Seattle vs European cities like Frankfurt or Amsterdam... you must not travel very much.

redisman5• 7 years ago

What are the Pioneer Square and "3rd and pike" of Frankfurt or Amsterdam?

thomascgalvin3• 7 years ago

You understand that the whole point of this article is that Seattle is turning away from the traditional view of drug use - a moral failing that needs to be punished - and toward a more modern view - a medical condition that needs treatment - right?

Punishment of drug use does nothing to prevent drug use. Its only value, therefore, is sadism.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

The War of Drugs, like most things, is abused by the rich and powerful.

But would you seriously look a Black mother or father in their face and tell her that her child is dead (and they are broke) because he freed himself from the oppressive Puritanical culture and enjoyed drugging himself to death and stealing their resources to feed his addiction?

thomascgalvin3• 7 years ago

My point is that those puritanical beliefs create grieving parents, because we seek to punish addicts instead of treating them.

America sees addiction as a moral failing which can be flagellated away, not as a medical condition requiring treatment.

koolba2• 7 years ago

“You’ve got a guy shooting heroin on the street, and the cop is supposed to say, ‘You O.K.?’” grumbled one law enforcement officer in Seattle. (In fact, an officer would typically confiscate the heroin, admonish the user and move on.) Some residents worry that when the city ignores its own laws on the books and tolerates people openly abusing narcotics, it takes a step toward incivility that will eventually result in chaos and crime. There’s also a legitimate argument that the threat of prison is sometimes necessary to motivate users to participate in treatment programs.

What non-drug user would want to live in a town where someone shooting heroin in public is not removed from the street? I know I wouldn't.

I'm not saying lock em up and throw away the key but you can't just move on and pretend nothing happened. If you're going to provide treatment in lieu of jail time then it needs to mandatory.

phil2482• 7 years ago

What does confiscating an addict's heroin accomplish? As far as I can tell, all you've done is make a desperate addict far more desperate than they were a moment ago. The situation is only made worse.

diydsp3• 7 years ago

One could say it incentivizes them to keep it at home, out of view of minors.

rdtwo21• 7 years ago

Well it prevents the ambulance from having to administer narcan an hour or 2 later

pnw_hazor12• 7 years ago

Maybe they would move to somewhere else where they can do their drugs in broad daylight in public without cops bothering them. And where commiting crimes to support their drug habit are unchallenged.

Someplace like Seattle.

diydsp3• 7 years ago

What non-drug user would want to live in a town where someone shooting heroin in public is not removed from the street? I know I wouldn't.

It really depends on the broader systematic picture.

If drug addicts fear consequences to the point of arming themselves and attacking strangers to avoid arrest and maintain supply, that's bad.

If they're able to demonstrate victimless crime, get their gear confiscated and force to keep it to themselves in their own homes or ask for help from the community without threat of incarceration, that's good.

So we really have to look at how it plays out in reality. It's not enough to make a black or white decision based on a hypothetical scenario. Furthermore, we need to consider the impact of judgement by police and rehab operators. Familiarity with the individuals and difficult-to-quantify details of each scenario may make the decision between admonishment, incarceration and forced rehab.

That said, these don't have to be ambiguous clouds of blurry judgement. We can prototype decision trees and debate about them.

crawfordcomeaux7• 7 years ago

Your perspective promotes traumatizing systems. You are therefore a danger to yourself and society.

If you are locked up as a result of this, will the reeducation take?

-----------------

Thought experiment aside, you don't know what other people need and forcing your ideas onto them is how we get into these messes in the first place.

Authoritarianism isn't a healing modality.

koolba2• 7 years ago

Your perspective promotes traumatizing systems. You are therefore a danger to yourself and society.
If you are locked up as a result of this, will the reeducation take?

Ha! If offending people was illegal I'd have been in prison a long time ago.

Thought experiment aside, you don't know what other people need and forcing your ideas onto them is how we get into these messes in the first place.

I'm not forcing my ideas on anyone. These are the laws collectively decided by us and and forefathers. As a group we've decided that we do not want people shooting heroin on our streets and we've made the practice illegal.

Authoritarianism isn't a healing modality.

I'd argue it authoritarianism to force a law abiding member of society to put up with this craziness in their communities. The people I feel the most sorry for are on the lower end of the income scale that do not have the financial means to vote with their feet.

linksnapzz2• 7 years ago

Neither is allowing schizophrenics, petty criminals and drug addicts to harm themselves and others, on the assumption that there's no such thing as normative civil behaviour. So that they might be "healed" by being left to their own devices, someone else needs to be harmed.

That someone is usually the poor naive bougie who thought that by paying property taxes and having a job, he could expect to be able to retain possession of his bike && not have to step over piles of human excrement on the way to the shop down the corner.

Singapore seems to avoid having these problems, as does Shanghai. So, while authoritarianism isn't about healing, that really isn't a primary function of state. Keeping order, maintaining a monopoly on violence, and maybe providing against certain preventable evils is really more why we have governments.

entropea4• 7 years ago

I've seen plenty of people shooting drugs in Seattle. So what? As long as they're not out attacking people or giving it to kids or something, I could care less what they do to themselves.

Seattle has a different mindset, it always has, its just the new Amazon & Tech population is trying to change the culture.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

I suppose you are also in favor of legalizing drunk driving, because the gross negligence of the matter is irrelevant?

SlowRobotAhead4• 7 years ago

What non-drug user would want to live in a town where someone shooting heroin in public is not removed from the street? I know I wouldn't.

I was in Portland and watched a guy shooting up on a bench middle of the day, tons of people around, he was screaming for no one to look at him, police at the other end of the block.

I appreciated that I was just visiting.

hprotagonist• 7 years ago

Gloucester, MA has been doing this for at least 4 years.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jmaxj7/this-new-england-t...

nostromo2• 7 years ago

... this is probably news to people actually living in Seattle. (Edit: the title was originally, "Seattle Has Figured Out How to End the War on Drugs")

A place where meth heads attack people with pitchforks in the street a few days after being released from prison on a suspended sentence.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-...

Not to mention our random piles of used syringes, which are often found in parks where kids play.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/more-than-3...

Here's a syringe pile after cleaning up a homeless camp north of Seattle:

https://2qibqm39xjt6q46gf1rwo2g1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

I'm all for decriminalization, but Seattle's current approach is to decriminalize not only drugs, but a host of other actual crimes, like public intoxication, public camping, shop lifting, harassment, etc.

diydsp3• 7 years ago

meth heads >Man accused

Is there a specific name for this particular type of generalization where a one-time event gets represented as a greater-than-one quantity?

isbjorn16• 7 years ago

Hyperbole?

empath752• 7 years ago

When people say things like this, I do have to wonder if they've ever lived in a city before. Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s.

There is just a certain amount of crime and drug use that will always exist in the big city. No amount of 'tough on crime' policing will make it go away.

nikanj3• 7 years ago

In the 80s people actually reported petty crime, and expected something to come out of it.

jrockway• 7 years ago

I think people are also ignoring the fact the drug use might not correlate with the crimes these people are committing. Perhaps they are just mentally ill, with no access to proper care, and are self-medicating. Jailing them will never solve the problem. Affordable healthcare might, however.

But oh no, then we'd have to pay taxes! We don't want a safe city that badly.

nostromo2• 7 years ago

"It's better now than it was during the worst crime wave in American history -- the 1980s."

You're not wrong, but you're also not setting a very high bar.

I think it's important that cities be safe, livable places. Seattle still is, for the most part. But ask some of your younger, single female friends where they will and will not go at night, and you may be surprised that it includes a large number of neighborhoods.

entropea4• 7 years ago

This is exactly it. It's almost totally a non-issue. I see orange needle caps and the occasional needle, but these junkies aren't attacking everyone, in fact you can just ignore them. I walk around in a dress downtown and on cap hill with zero issues. Never been attacked, assaulted, nothing. They lay in parks on cardboard and trash, but...so? Are they doing anything illegal?

Comfortable salaried people love to make a big issue about it because Seattle isn't scrubbed clean to perfection and they see a mess every once in awhile, but really the city isn't bad at all and isn't full of rampant crime.

jdpedrie• 7 years ago

Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s.

And most cities are worlds better to live in than they were in the 1980s. Why would you want to go back?

CPLX2• 7 years ago

When people write responses like this I wonder if they’ve ever been to New York City. We don’t really have comparable problems.

For me visiting LA, SF or Seattle is jaw dropping. I totally reject this idea that these situations are just inevitable.

Gaelan• 7 years ago

Honest Q: how is crime rate measured? If police stopped enforcing laws against, say, shoplifting, and the rate of shoplifting did not change, would the crime rate go down?

mehrdadn3• 7 years ago

Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s.

Someone else says the opposite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20780632

Not sure which one is correct...

m0zg3• 7 years ago

> has been steadily declining since the 1980s

And it'll "decline" further after this now that petty theft and shooting heroin in full view of the public is not a crime. Abolish all laws and it'll go down to zero, woo-hoo!

I fear that the secondary effect of this will be to attract even more homeless heroin addicts from places where these things are still crimes.

nikanj3• 7 years ago

It’s only war if both sides are actively fighting. Seattle ended the war on drugs.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

If crime is determined by victimhood:

public intoxication not an "actual crime"
public camping seeking shelter is not an "actual crime"
shop lifting is an "actual crime"
harassment is an "actual crime"

fiter• 7 years ago

I think there are victims for public camping but people will argue about the severity of the victimization. For example, I have to step off the sidewalk into the street in order to get by a set of tents.

Agreed on public intoxication.

munificent5• 7 years ago

By that logic, burning down a forest, defacing a public work of art, building a personal home in the middle of a public park, and dynamite fishing a coral reef are not "actual crimes" either.

A good definition of "crime" needs to be able to include action that indirectly harm a large number of potential people. Otherwise, you are powerless to address the tragedy of the commons.

fwip3• 7 years ago

A place where a meth head attacked people with a pitchfork.

Fixed that up for you - don't pluralize individual incidents to suit your narrative.

just_lurkin• 7 years ago

The reporters designation of "figured out" seems to stem more from the fact that the solution fits his own view than any actual real evidence. There is mention of the difficulties such lax policies has brought to the city, but they are waved away as being "growing pains" toward a new utopia.

I can't say, living here, that I feel that the problem is solved. I view the needles outside my apartment as evidence to the contrary - though I suppose I'm an ignoramus for thinking that.

Simply strolling through Pioneer Square or most parts of International District paints a significantly different picture. One can dine at a Chinese place on Jackson and look out their window and see junkies peddling stolen goods at the bus stop. The non-enforcement of so-called "petty crime" used to fund drug addictions is egregious and continues to undermine the already little sense of community there is in this city of transients.

What I'm trying to say is that while I appreciate the difference in approach from the traditional one, I do believe that there needs to be an honest discussion about the limits of rehabilitation. More research on the subject, as it relates to Seattle, shows that there are many, many, people who take advantage of these lax policies to abuse the system, hurting others who actually need help.

psychometry• 7 years ago

Supervised consumption sites would go a long way toward fixing the needle problem.

grawprog• 7 years ago

We have safe injection sites up here in Vancouver, you still find used needles lying around everywhere, depending where you go, only you also find the small saline packs and disposable spoons from the injection sites lying around with the used needles.

The police don't really seem to care. I've watched a couple of officers find a small pile of used needles at one of the skytrain stations, they laughed to each other said how they should be cleaning that up, then just left. I know about an hour later, a bunch of school kids take the bus I was waiting for. Calling and reporting it did nothing.

throwaway8273643• 7 years ago

How? Junkies and other folks who throw needles on the street when there’s a trash can like 5 feet away will actually make appointments to stop at these consumption sites? Who pays for this? The city of Seattle makes a mess because of their extremist policies of not enforcing laws so let’s raise taxes to make up for it?

downandout3• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, the people that such initiatives are aimed at happen to be junkies. They will consume whenever and wherever they feel like it, just as many of them will steal from the most convenient target when they need more money for a fix. Further, the optics of state-sanctioned drug use sites are pretty bad, even in the most liberal of cities.

m0zg3• 7 years ago

Observation to the contrary: availability of toilets does not fix "shitting on the streets" problem in SF.

diogenescynic4• 7 years ago

No it wouldn’t. They wouldn’t use them. Junkies reuse needles they find on the ground because they don’t care... they aren’t going to go to a specific place to wait in line to shoot up.

nikanj3• 7 years ago

Wars can also be ended by surrender, which Vancouver BC did. I understand Seattle’s approach has been similar: Grant de facto immunity to homeless people committing petty crime, stop all police enforcement of drug laws, and shame everyone who dares to complain.

malandrew5• 7 years ago

and shame everyone who dares to complain.

And then watch at they turn on you by quietly voting for your opponents in greater and greater numbers as the problem worsens.

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver are remarkably similar in their problems and approaches to solutions. It really feels like a PNW/BC cultural thing.

Spooky232• 7 years ago

That's happening all over. Statistics-based policing helps here. When you don't arrest people, your crime rate doesn't go up.

ClumsyPilot3• 7 years ago

except governance is not a war, and unlike in a war you are concerned with well-being of your citizen and are not allowed to kill them... So really, just an empty soundbyte

kontorlaore• 7 years ago

The purpose of this article is different - someone will say "the safety situation in Seattle is terrible because of ultra-liberal drug policies". Then you are supposed to reply with this article as a counter. And New York Times beats The Seattle Times, so you've won the argument.

It's all about providing a counter-narrative to prevent cognitive dissonance.

notadoc• 7 years ago

It's certainly not just Seattle either, the large-scale homeless/junky situation describes basically every west coast city.

There's obviously a much deeper problem.

throwawaysea3• 7 years ago

Isn’t the problem simply overly liberal policy making? It seems moderation has disappeared on the West coast, and these cities basically don’t enforce laws against those pursuing a nomadic drug centric lifestyle on the backs of taxpayer supported land/amenities/services.

allana12• 7 years ago

The severe wealth stratification that has occurred over the last few decades has left the majority of Americans facing a grim future of low earnings and unstable employment.

Its easy to see how that would make many people depressed and lead to a cycle of addiction to escape this crappy reality.

InitialLastName• 7 years ago

Amusingly, it's entirely possible that the deepest problem is cleanly illustrated by the other two replies to your comment (throwawaysea blaming liberalism and allana blaming wealth inequality) as we talk around one another's preconceived notions of how the world works until we drive off a cliff.

news_to_me• 7 years ago

Do you think there would be fewer needles outside your apartment if we simply locked these people up? I think there would be more.

I agree that the limits of rehabilitation need to be seriously considered, and that good policy requires a mix of approaches. That said, all of your arguments could be applied to alcoholics during prohibition.

I think if we actually want a sense of community in this city, it starts by treating our neighbors as humans. These drug users are your neighbors. What are you doing to help them?

rdtwo21• 7 years ago

If my neighbor beat his wife, damaged my car and pissed on my house I would do exactly what ever good neighbor should- call the cops and make sure they have enough evidence to send his ass to jail. The problem is when the cops don’t come then what do you do?

downandout3• 7 years ago

Eventually a junkie will commit a serious crime against one of the tech luminaries that live in and around Seattle. I’m guessing that the lax enforcement environment will be gone within about a day of that incident.

Seattle is playing with fire here. I wouldn’t set foot in a city where hard drug use is tolerated, and seemingly celebrated, by many of the people that live there. Junkies will do whatever is necessary to get their next fix. It seems like a bad idea to be anywhere near a city with policies that both attract and help create them.

pnw_hazor12• 7 years ago

I dunno, may be you are right -- that the "right" person hasn't been assaulted, raped or killed yet.

Certainly, the high profile stabbing in front of Nordstroms didn't do much. Nor, did much change when the homeless guy was stopped from throwing a women on her way to work off an I-5 overpass. Or the lady who was raped by the homeless guy at the U-district car dealership after dropping her car off for an oil change on her way to work in the morning.

I assume it would have to be someone connected to the local government. It took about five seconds to change the 2nd Ave bike lanes when a city employee was killed riding her bike down there.

rdtwo21• 7 years ago

There was a video of a man in a Seattle target last year. Guy goes on a 15 min rampage in downtown and nobody shows up to stop him. That’s the state of decriminalization we have hit.

https://youtu.be/KA3KQCYI17U

rayiner6• 7 years ago

It's interesting people always point to Portugal to support the idea that decriminalization is the way to address substance abuse. But compare Sweden, which has similar levels of drug dependency to Portugal, but takes a "zero tolerance" approach to drug use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden. While Sweden does include treatment as part of its drug policy, that is a complement to, not replacement for, strict law enforcement.

(Swedes are very anti-drug. While a narrow majority of even Republicans in the US support legalization of cannabis, 83% of Swedes support keeping it illegal: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-cannabis/in-anti-d...)

DanBC5• 7 years ago

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), in 2005, the rate of drug-related deaths per capita in Sweden was more than twice that of the Netherlands and there were more persons addicted to severe narcotics ("heavy drugs") than in other countries

It doesn't seem to be working that well, does it?

stefan_• 7 years ago

So they throw people in jail and end up having the same outcomes as Portugal that doesn't?

Gee, you are making it very difficult to choose which policy I prefer!

xyzzyz2• 7 years ago

Portugal is such a strange example to point at. Yes, the heroin use fell after the decriminalization, but it also fell in other countries at the same time. Use of other drugs in Portugal after decriminalization actually rose.

tenpies• 7 years ago

Whenever someone points out Portugal and you talk to them you find that they think just decriminalization turned Portugal into a beautiful utopia.

In practice decriminalization was 20% of the action. The important 80% was investing heavily in social workers, public health, and temporary housing so that people on drugs could receive treatment.

What other countries fail to appreciate is that people in these conditions are almost always self-medicating or escaping something. So great, you don't put them in jail, but they continue living in a vicious addictive hell with no hope for a better future or of ever regaining their lives. That's not exactly compassionate is it?

The metric to track can't be: "didn't die" or "didn't incarcerate", it should be "regained their life" and "broke their addiction".

xenocyon2• 7 years ago

At least part of the cause of the visible squalor we see in Seattle is that the tough-on-crime crowd has consistently opposed safe injection, harm reduction, trash pickup, housing-first, and other evidence-based policies in favor of expensive, inhumane, and pointless measures like sweeps and incarceration. Any measure the city government takes that is not overtly cruel gets slammed as coddling the homeless or "attracting" homeless to the city, despite the fact that the data show this trope to be a fiction.

refurb2• 7 years ago

Tough on crimes folks oppose trash pick-up?

Really?

ianai3• 7 years ago

“some would prefer to see the police cart drug users off to jail to get them out of the way” (article)

It seems like creating housing projects for these people would be cheaper and more beneficial to society than increasing the prison population. I’d like to see something like dorms with shared restrooms, cafeterias, and such facilities. It’d create work and demand locally while keeping the streets clean.

rayiner6• 7 years ago

I'm anti-incarceration for moral reasons, but it's not clear to me that there is a definitive consensus that incarceration does not work. See: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan02/w8489.html

"Annual expenditures of approximately $10 billion on drug incarceration almost pay for themselves through reductions in health care costs and lost productivity attributable to illegal drug use, even ignoring any crime reductions associated with such incarceration."

(The above is from a study conducted by a prominent U Chicago economist and another economist who is now at Princeton.)

It’s really very complicated. One of the macro trends over the last few decades is a massive increase in crime from the late 1960s to the mid 1990s, then a decrease since then. Incarceration started increasing in the 1970s and 1980s as a response to that increase in crime. When crime started coming down in the 1990s, incarceration started coming down about ten years behind that in the 2000s.

Nobody really knows why crime started dropping in the 1990s. Some people think that the reduction is attributable to the banning of leaded gasoline. Maybe. But I don’t think studied have ruled out the notion that the reduction is attributable to putting a large number of people in prison. See: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/089533004773563485

Crime fell sharply and unexpectedly in the 1990s. Four factors appear to explain the drop in crime: increased incarceration, more police, the decline of crack and legalized abortion.

It’s not an area where you can point to a definitive consensus, and everyone interprets the data to fit their own political views.

jyrkesh4• 7 years ago

I had a conversation with someone the other day who made many of the same arguments as you. I agreed with some of it--namely that around safe injection, harm reduction, methadone (et al) clinics, etc.--but I had a hard time stomaching the idea that "housing first" was a good idea, in that if you take a drug addict and put them in a home, they're still a drug addict who can't contribute meaningfully to society.

Would you mind pointing to some of those studies/evidence so I can be a little more informed about the whole thing?

EDIT: Found one further down, but would love to see any others you have: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.94.4...

drak0n1c• 7 years ago

Having both the serious possibility of prosecution while offering the alternative of entering a drug treatment facility and emerging with a cleared history is a good compromise. People who committed petty crimes due to addiction and were compelled by the state of Rhode Island to go through such a program say that it saved their life.

Intervention works and it can be done humanely.

nsxwolf• 7 years ago

The King County Needle Exchange is why there's needles absolutely everywhere. Safe injection won, and now you can't walk anywhere barefoot.

blackflame70004• 7 years ago

What data are you talking about? Because there sure is a strong correlation between drug use and homelessness. While I think it's insane to punish people for ingesting substances that might harm them, I still don't think we should just look the other way and silently condone its use when it's actively destroying people's lives.

reallydude• 7 years ago

"attracting" homeless to the city, despite the fact that the data show this trope to be a fiction.

This is incorrect and I think it's constructive to address it. People talk about numbers, but it's mostly just whatever justifies their bias. Where you draw a line AND when matters when talking about this, so I believe somewhere just under 40% are from outside Seattle. I measure that if you're not from King County (for at least 1 year) before you lost your home, you've moved to it (re: http://allhomekc.org/king-county-point-in-time-pit-count/). Either way, homeless people do not move away to cheaper locales, but are drawn toward the city center. This is primarily due to existing support networks, convenient mobility, drug availability, tolerance, and available disposable wealth. Seattle is not special in this regard, as this behavior is see in many metropolitan centers around the world. Does it matter? No. Where people come from isn't the issue as you can't really control for the conditions...what is WA gonna do, prevent global warming from sending climate refugees up the coast? Good luck Inslee.

I have observed how various cities have approached handling the homeless. I spent 5 years in Santa Cruz, CA and a decade in Santa Ana, CA where these same "issues" had been handled differently from Seattle. I'm not an expert, but I have an opinion, and I recognize that's all it is.

You know who doesn't have a homeless problem? Irvine, CA. If you have a car with a bunch of caked mud on it and some dents or a blown out window, you get status-profiled (they don't admit to it, and it's not racial, but it's demonstrable) and pulled over. The Irvine Company (a family who owns most of Irvine) leverages or ships undesirables from the city and it stays that way (mostly in Costa Mesa, Laguna, etc) same as Santa Cruz did in the 90s where they would drop repeat offenders on a train to Santa Clara. Luckily(?) when a few people ended up freezing to death in their cars and the streets (over a few winters) in Santa Cruz, it came out as an official public safety policy. Draconian measures work to a degree, it seems, but mostly moving people CONSISTENTLY works.

Mixing unrestricted support systems into metropolitan areas has been applied for over half a century. It sifts those who can be helped, out until you have those who cannot or will not be helped. As unpopular as it seems, I think that a city/county being allowed to export people to unincorporated areas if they break a city/county law and have no residence and aren't able to complete a work program, would solve homelessness in a more humane manner. If you don't want to participate in society, homestead the land or run your way back and start over. Either way, it doesn't fill more jail cells. Yes people may die, just as people die now, but without putting residents at risk.

cavisne4• 7 years ago

Who is this "crowd". Seattle politics has been absolutely dominated by people who support all these things.

Last week I saw 2 people shooting up on the brand new deck of pike place market, essentially the biggest tourist attraction in Seattle.

Are you honestly claiming that if only they had a safe injection site and some housing that allowed drug use that that wouldn't happen?

Drug addicts don't care about any of that stuff, they want to get it in their veins asap, and now that its effectively legal they can do this 24/7.

amscanne• 7 years ago

At least part of the cause of the visible squalor we see in Seattle is that the tough-on-crime crowd has consistently opposed safe injection, harm reduction, trash pickup, housing-first, and other evidence-based policies in favor of expensive, inhumane, and pointless measures like sweeps and incarceration. Any measure the city government takes that is not overtly cruel gets slammed as coddling the homeless or "attracting" homeless to the city, despite the fact that the data show this trope to be a fiction.

What data are you referring to? Governments in the Seattle area manage to spend over a billion dollars each year on the homeless problem. With about 10,000 people, that’s about $100,000 per person per year (both numbers are 2017). And they only house about 50%, which means $200,000 per person housed in temporary or permanent housing.

Somehow New York City houses 80% of a larger homeless population (60,000) for around $50,000 per person. They are three times more effective with their money.

People should be yelling. The data does suggest that policies on the west coast are expensive and ineffective. They aren’t good for anyone. I think the author of this post [1] makes greats points about the problems of unlimited compassion. Looking at the numbers really changes how I feel about the tent city down the street from me.

[1] https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness

asdff4• 7 years ago

There are people who are mentally ill, addicted to drugs, and/or abused. The streets are no place to heal these wounds, they are a place for them to fester. Modern asylums and rehab centers should be built, along with shelter space with counseling and medical services.

Leaving people to rot on the street for even an instant longer is abhorrently inhumane, and the local government officials in charge of our west coast cities should just resign, since they so clearly lack any empathy or rational thinking.

autokad• 7 years ago

I see people shooting up in public places, people walking around naked, doing wheelies on a wheelchair on high traffic roads, drug needles laying on the side walk, etc.

I think enforcing these laws would make Seattle safer and an overall better place to live.

diogenescynic4• 7 years ago

I thought you were describing San Francisco.

mAEStro-paNDa• 7 years ago

The reporters designation of "figured out" seems to stem more from the fact that the solution fits his own view than any actual real evidence.

It's an opinion piece.

TheHypnotist2• 7 years ago

When I was out there last fall, we stayed in Belltown and walked all over. I'm wondering, where was all this squalor you speak of? I came out with a very different impression of the city than you describe. Obviously you would know better, so I'm just wondering, did I get lucky?

fwip3• 7 years ago

I live in Seattle and take the bus to work downtown every day. I think I've seen, maybe three needles in five years.

tony_cannistra• 7 years ago

The geography of homelessness in Seattle still eludes me, but Belltown just isn't one of the high-concentration areas. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Pioneer Square and the International District are hotspots. This may be due to shelters and missions (places to get food and housing) being more concentrated there.

Homelessness and drug use also comes in very different forms even within Seattle; I live in Ballard, and most of our homeless and drug-addicted community lives in beaten-up RVs parked on the side of the road.

prestonh• 7 years ago

Perhaps you got lucky. Belltown isnt as bad as some other areas, but in my one year of daily walking commutes through Belltown I saw

1. A person OD'd (presumably dead) at a bus stop

2. Someone passed out, face down in the gutter

3. Multiple people shooting up (usually pants down, shooting into leg)

4. A guy that would regularly walk around shouting and gesturing angrily, making everyone near by visibly anxious

5. One guy literally rolling around in the middle of the street during rush hour, holding up busses and cars

6. A fight, fortunately broken up caused by a homeless guy spitting on another guy

7. People selling stolen goods in the open

8. Finally, some guy got shot in an alley in the middle of broad daylight on like, a Tuesday a couple weeks back.

Not offering suggestions, merely documenting my experiences. I am genuinely glad you had a good trip to Seattle, though

tenaciousDaniel• 7 years ago

I've heard that it's not legal to force people into rehab. But I can't see why this can't be done under something like the Baker Act.

If you're physically addicted to drugs, you are to some extent not capable of making rational choices, and this means you are a threat to yourself and to those around you. Could this not be a legal pretext to detain someone (humanely) and bring them to rehab treatment? Seems like a better alternative than jail, and certainly a better alternative to letting drug addicts rot on the streets.

I'm also not a lawyer and have no idea what I'm talking about, so feel free to lay into me and let me know why this idea is wrong or even crazy.

proverbialbunny3• 7 years ago

Usually how it works is if you break the law (eg, steal something) and get caught, you are arrested, then you get to see a judge. At that point it is up to the judge to push rehab as a punishment or prison. This depends on the laws of the area, the offense, and if this is a repeat offense.

ClumsyPilot3• 7 years ago

I think you are in the right morally, and legislative position is not relevant - it should be based on morals. Various countries have/had absurd laws, such as making it illegal to insult the supreme leader, suicide is illegal, and having legal slavery, heresy, the list goes on and on. Today we regard those laws as stupid and cruel, and hopefully one day we will regard persecution of addicts with the same incredulity as we regard witch-hunts

tryitnow• 7 years ago

Interesting. Some of the benefits of decriminalizing can probably only be realized if it's done as a national level, so I'm pretty skeptical of just how successful local initiatives can be.

I wonder how Portugal achieved such supposed success in decriminalizing drug use.

jmcqk6• 7 years ago

I do believe that there needs to be an honest discussion about the limits of rehabilitation.

First I think we need to have an honest discussion about actually trying rehabilitation. The criminal justice system is more concerned with retribution than rehabilitation.

nathansoz2• 7 years ago

Jesus dude. Just the "junkies" comment shows that you aren't even open to a different approach.

DoreenMichele2• 7 years ago

Junkies tend to be people with overwhelming problems who can't make their lives work. Throwing people in jail is usually not a means to make their lives suddenly start working.

I think you solve problems like widespread drug use by repairing the tattered social fabric that of this country which has taken such a toll on so many of the people who live here.

diogenescynic4• 7 years ago

What about not ruining everyone else’s lives and the public health issues these people create? Not a fan of conservative ideology, but surely there is some level of personal responsibility and accountability they have towards the public? And when they betray that buy shitting on public areas or leaving needles near playgrounds, I think it’s not only reasonable but necessary to incarcerate them—for their own good and the public’s.

caiocaiocaio• 7 years ago

Hmm, a headline with an extreme claim that seems completely unbelievable to anyone in the Pacific Northwest? I'm sure this is a legitimate article headline and not just clickbait, so I'm going to move my mouse cursor right on up there, expecting a rewarding, enlightening, and satisfying use of my time.

kerng• 7 years ago

Wow, Seattle has turned worse over the last few years. At some parts downtown its nearly as bad as SF. I don't think Seattle has figured out anything...

throwaway8273643• 7 years ago

This article is disingenuous at best. I don’t support the war on drugs, but Seattle’s handling of the situation isn’t close to a model for other cities. As someone who lived here all my life, it’s been a complete disaster. I’m frankly really disappointed in the NYTimes for publishing this garbage.

He doesn’t go into the negatives of what the policies in Seattle has done to the city until so far later in the article. The local officials are very lax on drug use, homelessness.

We have entire tent cities. Petty crime is pretty high. The police won’t bother to respond if you report a car break in, for example. There’s trash littered on practically any street that has tents. Some of these folks are addicts and some aren’t but to say Seattle has solved this problem - you mean we just ignore laws and allow anyone to do whatever they want. Repeat criminal who was arrested last week? Here, we’ll keep you for an hour maybe and you’ll definitely be out by tomorrow.

I’m not advocating jailing all drug use so private prisons get rich, but Seattle’s extreme leftist take on pretending like the problem hasn’t been a disaster for the city is just absurd.

thatswrong03• 7 years ago

Sounds just like SF, and it's a large part of the reason I want to leave the west coast entirely and go somewhere with more sane policies.

fzeroracer4• 7 years ago

If you think the west coast has insane policies, then you should really try living elsewhere for a bit of perspective.

I've lived in WA, CA, VA and TX. No state has sane policies and the more I've moved, the more I've realized this. WA still ranks at the top of my list for states to live in.

pnw_hazor12• 7 years ago

This morning I saw camper along I-5 with a generator. I wonder if he was a drug dealer, fence, or pimp. He had a nice setup.

wbronitsky2• 7 years ago

Why can't this person be a serice worker, a gig worker or a white collar worker? What about living in a camper with a generator tells you this person is "a drug dealer, fence or pimp"? Are there not other explanations other than labeling this person/these people as groups you do not like?

phil2482• 7 years ago

"Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally"

It only shocks Boomers. Their only answer to 'crime' was to keep making laws harsher until all the jail cells were full. Then to build more jail cells.

There's no need to have criminal penalties for drug use in the first place. What we want less of isn't drug use, it's the anti-social behaviors and health issues that often stem from drug use. Look at the other comments here - no one is upset with the mere ingestion of substances, they are complaining about the behaviors they see on the streets. Behaviors that impact the rest of use negatively. And we all know that a lot of that behavior has nothing to do with drug use in the first place. But it's a lot harder to deal with the behavior issue because then you're dealing with things like mental health issues and large-scale economic issues, on top of drug abuse.

It's so much easier to just use drugs as a scapegoat and start locking people up. Like the Boomers did! But we know that doing so is monumentally stupid and ineffective so we need a different way. Props to Seattle for trying a different way, but just as we've seen here in SF, these half-assed measures do as much to encourage anti-social behavior as they do to mitigate it. I think these West Coast cities being besieged by the nice-weather homelessness epidemic (and associated drug use) are going to have to come up with something a little tougher than what they've found the political will for so far. But we also have to acknowledge that we can't, won't and never should return to the idiotic War on Drugs.

synack• 7 years ago

Anecdotally, Seattle PD has been more aggressive about going after dealers in the last few months. This has led to more turf wars between gangs and a spike in gun violence in parts of the city as they fight to fill the power vacuum. Not great, but it does indicate that the police have put a dent in the distribution network.

RocketSyntax• 7 years ago

"Increasingly there is global recognition that drugs are better addressed as a health challenge than as a law enforcement issue."

That's pretty rad.

eweise• 7 years ago

A trick for getting by the paywall is to click the "stop" button on the browser before the page fully loads.

rdl• 7 years ago

Whoa. Using Seattle as a positive story in the war on drugs seems...highly questionable. The city has been essentially destroyed by junkie infestation, enabled by (possibly well-meaning) people.

redisman5• 7 years ago

Yeah really. I urge any city leaders who read this to spend a day walking around downtown Seattle to see what "figured it out" means.

whateveracct2• 7 years ago

Seattle is far from "destroyed." There are obviously issues, sure. But this smells like hyperbolic political rhetoric to me and I don't appreciate it.

whateveracct2• 7 years ago

All this sort of hyperbole does is breed hate for other human beings. Not what we need.

RickS• 7 years ago

As a resident, Seattle's drug policy seems okay. I think the goal of harm reduction, trust building, and getting people back on track is a laudable goal. People need a pathway back, not to keep being kicked down.

But we need higher standards about the anti-social behaviors that are comorbid to drug use. The problem isn't that people are on narcotics. It's at least _possible_ to be a functional member of society while on opiates, and I don't think someone should be wrung through the legal system for having the wrong things in their blood for a bit.

The problem is tent cities burning trash under the overpass. Lines of disheveled camper vans near the shopping centers draining their sewage into open buckets on the street (thank god they're kind enough to use a bucket) Panhandlers harassing residents at such scale that all but the most resilient citizens grimace at the thought of walking through their city center. Some of these people seem not to have drug problems at all.

I'm okay with low standards about drug policy enforcement, so long as it's coupled with high standards about behavior in the public space.

It's the second half that Seattle has yet to solve.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

Seattle needs more public dumpsters and sewage receptacles for non-landowners/land-renters.

When London was covered in rivers of shit in the 19th Century because there was no sanitation infrastructure, was that because the citizens were anti-social criminals? Or was is a societal problem that needed a funded solution?

mmilano• 7 years ago

Haven't been here a while and the first 2 links I clicked are walled. Seems like shilling sites to the front-page of HN might be a decent business.

dang2• 7 years ago

Since people are objecting to "figured out", we replaced the title with a more neutral sentence from the article body.

neonate• 7 years ago

http://archive.is/xMFni

dcolkitt• 7 years ago

I fully support legalizing all drugs, but don't understand why the latest wave of criminal justice reform tolerates property crimes. Crimes like smash and grabs, purse snatching, bike thefts, vandalism, littering, and shoplifting clearly have defined victims and lower the quality of life for everyone.

It's perfectly possible to be a heroin addict and an upstanding citizen at the same time. The same cannot be said of a bike thief. The vast majority of even hardcore homeless drug addicts do not engage in malicious property crimes. It's only a small fraction, that also tends to be the most violent and socially pathological.

Vigorous enforcement of property crime improves the life for everyone in the city. Doubly so for the otherwise law-abiding drug users, who most often bear the worse brunt of the anti-social property criminals. The best way to sell drug policy reform to law and order conservatives is to redirect those resources to non-victimless crimes. Not just throw your hands up in the air and give up on enforcing any laws whatsoever.

Aperocky• 7 years ago

I would need quote on the 'vast majority' claim. You can't leave a bike for 10 minutes in downtown Seattle for a reason, homeless heroin addicts gets their drug and resource to procure those drug _somewhere_.

sukilot12• 7 years ago

I have left my bike unlocked, and even my automobile unlocked with its keys in it, many time and never been burgled. (Once in Boston my bike accessories were stolen off my bike.)

Even if every bike is stolen by an addict, that doesn't mean most addicts are doing the stealing.

jimbob45• 7 years ago

Yeah I'm not sure I get it either. The problem was that throwing heroin addicts in prison for 5 years doesn't rehabilitate them or solve anything. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be held liable for crimes they commit while high.

jbattle• 7 years ago

The alternative is often vigilante justice, which is worse for everyone. Apparently the 'coffee throwing guy' was beaten by the child's father after he threw coffee - certainly an understandable reaction from a father who saw his child assaulted. But that's going to leave a mark on everyone - Calderon included

moufestaphio• 7 years ago

I fully support legalizing all drugs, but don't understand why the latest wave of criminal justice reform tolerates property crimes.

This so much! You're not a criminal because you're doing heroin or whatever, you're a criminal because you're stealing everything that isn't nailed down, harassing and threatening people in the neighborhood, attempting to break into houses repeatedly.

This is all happening to my neighbors and I. But the police do nothing.

It's pretty frustrating.

proverbialbunny3• 7 years ago

It's like society has forgotten why prisons exist -- to protect the general populous from people who are dangerous.

Imprisoning someone for using drugs is a terrible way to use the prison system, because they're not harming anyone. However, not imprisoning someone who steals, vandalizes, and harms others, is equally faulty.

vehementi3• 7 years ago

Is this a "just asking questions" post? (edit: haha based on the downvotes it suuuuure was.)

It's not about tolerating property crime, it's about recognizing a) property crime is a symptom of the problem b) people suffering from property crime is a super minor problem c) the real, immediate problem is that we have thousands of homeless/addicts/mentally ill people who are suffering way more than someone who lost their bike d) it is known that you can't arrest your way out of this problem.

So, where to put resources? Obviously, spending a lot of resources on constantly arresting people is a massive waste of money and people will just be back out on the streets eventually doing the same shit. So that's not a good use of police / court system / prison system time and taxpayer money. We need to go after the root of the problem -- untreated mental illness, addiction, homelessness, etc. That is why enforcement of petty crimes is a low concern.

memmcgee• 7 years ago

Property crime is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Consider this: wage theft results in over double the losses of all other property crimes COMBINED, yet we don't throw bosses who rob their workers of earned pay in jail.

anarazel2• 7 years ago

Isn't part of the problem here the consequences of charging / jailing / sentencing / imprisoning people in the us? There largely is no rehabilitation / mental health support happening while imprisoned (with jails being worse on average iirc). Being convicted of a crime increases recidivism in a lot of areas (I assume largely due to the fact that it gets much harder to ever get/keep jobs, and due to network effects). Fees and fines (and then fees/fines for not being able to pay them, for financial, organizational, and other reasons) for justice system contacts also have severe effects on a lot of places.

With that in mind not convicting people of some crimes can make more sense (even if surely not right in all).

cabaalis• 7 years ago

I'm not a statistical expert. Can someone who is comment on how the population selection exclusions described below may or may not effect the results?

This evaluation included 318 adults who were suspected of recent violations of the uniform controlled substances act (VUCSA) and/or prostitution offenses and were deemed eligible for LEAD by arresting officers. Individuals were ineligible for participation if any of the following exclusion criteria applied: a) the amount of drugs involved exceeded 3 g (all drug classes were eligible); b) the suspected drug activity involved delivery or possession with intent to deliver and there was reason to believe the suspect was dealing for profit above a subsistence income; c) the individual did not appear amenable to diversion; d) the individual appeared to exploit minors or others in a drug dealing enterprise; e) the individual was suspected of promoting prostitution; f) the individual had a disqualifying criminal history (i.e.,conviction for murder 1 or 2, arson 1 or 2, robbery 1, assault 1,kidnapping, Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act 1, sex offense, or attempt of any of these crimes); g) within the past 10 years, the individual was convicted on a domestic violence offense, robbery 2,assault 2 or 3, burglary 1 or 2, or Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act2;or h) the individual was already involved in King County Drug Diversion Court or Mental Health Court.

Source: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/6f124f_f4eed992eaff402f88ddb4...

From a layman's perspective, my question is would the exclusions shown above favor inclusion of people less likely of recidivism?

AcerbicZero• 7 years ago

lol the passed out addicts I pass every day, the piles of needles, the shit, the broken car windows, and the constant sound of either police or ambulance sirens would beg to differ.

coldtea• 7 years ago

Sure, since this "rule of law" thing is going so well for the city /s

ndarwincorn11• 7 years ago

“You’ve got a guy shooting heroin on the street, and the cop is supposed to say, ‘You O.K.?’” grumbled one law enforcement officer in Seattle.

As progressive as some are here, the NIMBYism (see other locals that this opinion piece has riled up in the thread) and bad apples on the police force spoiling the whole bunch are just as bad as anywhere else.

Another anecdote to add to the quote: walking up 12th Ave (Cap Hill) midday on a Sunday, some friends and I passed by a dude sleeping or passed out on the sidewalk and two oncoming walking cops simultaneously. One looked down and asked, "rough night?" and laughed with his partner.

In case it's not clear, this wasn't a friendly offer of assistance, this was a drive by insult (they didn't break stride at all) that made it clear that if it weren't for progressive laws about occupying public space they'd be violently removing the guy from the sidewalk.

ndarwincorn11• 7 years ago

For folks down this far, the prevailing hive mind in this thread is why when someone asks what I do for work here I try to distance myself from the rest of you as far as I can.

asdfgasd4• 7 years ago

I fully agree with you. This insane attitude of "my ill-gotten capital is worth more than your existence" is pathetic and sad.

pgnas• 7 years ago

Seattle is a poster child city for what NOT to do. Your politicians need to take their experiments someplace else. I was horrified at how terrible that city has become since I last was there.

Now, if i go there, you are allowing these drugged out zombies to steal from me and harass me? I don’t understand, I really do not.

djsumdog• 7 years ago

There is a lot going on in these comments. I feels like I've stepped back into /r/seattle (where redditors of Seattle seem to just hate all homeless people).

There is a lot going on here. First, there are a lot of homeless. Housing is sky rocketing and many people cannot afford to live anywhere close to where they can find work. The tech community there basically waves there hands and just says, "You can't afford to live here as a barista, well then you just gotta do the 1~2 hour bus/car commute in order to make me coffee. Sucks to be you."

Many of the other issues people are listing, aren't about drugs. They are about the homeless.

Second, people are talking about the other petty crime that goes with drugs: people stealing to get money for drugs. Violent crime and theft certainly don't need to be normalized. Chicago's recent DA's office has been criticized of not being hard enough on kids who commit crimes; which leads to more things like carjackings and even more violent stuff (knowing they might not face charges). That's a different issue -- although tangentially related and can't be ignored.

Portugal is a great example of a country where they try real treatment and help for people struggling with addiction. It's a better example of what happens with these policies long term. From what I've read and heard, it's mostly positive.

I personally knew people in my home town who stood in line at 5am on Mondays to get their methadone for the week. Treatment programs/rehab are for the rich -- often costing $2k ~ $5k out of pocket. Movie stars go to treatment. There need to be more treatment options that are affordable for those most in need of them. Drug treaming in America is just as shameful as the rest of our totally broken health care system.

https://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-...

throwawaysea3• 7 years ago

Yea the ubiquitous property crime, tents on public land/parks, needles on streets/greenspaces/tossed on our lawn, ... Seattle has DEFINITELY figured it out. Is this article satire? Because it seems totally disconnected from reality on the ground in Seattle. This was a beautiful city that is being ruined by progressive policy/selective law enforcement, and it is riding on the coattails of a strong local economy. Right now we are on the fast track to becoming just as trashed up as SF.

SlowRobotAhead4• 7 years ago

Selective enforcement of the law, is not in effect decriminalizing.

40acres• 7 years ago

I live in Portland, OR and have been to Seattle many times. This article is disingenuous -- homelessness and hard drug use are blights on these two rapidly growing cities.

I'm deeply critical of our criminal justice system and feel that we need a complete revamping of who and why we criminalize. Instead of stop and frisk like tacits that disproportionately affect minorities we need to refocus our police and penitentiary efforts on bringing these folks into a facility specifically designed to wean them off drugs and rehabilitate.

cronix• 7 years ago

They're living in tents surrounded by rats, garbage, raw sewage and chasing away residents and business. Are these cities gaining taxpayers and businesses, or losing them? How happy are the residents of these cities with these conditions who pay for it all? You're very compassionate allowing people to decay on the streets. Congrats on your "win." What you won, I don't know. I see more misery than ever before. At least they can get their drugs without consequence now. I'm sure they're happy for that while they waste away in front of our eyes. At least you can say you were acting in a compassionate way, even while the results are completely contrary. Brownie points for you.

andrepd• 7 years ago

Was Bunny Colvin ahead of his time?

md224• 7 years ago

Seattle should consider instituting Outpatient Commitment [1] if they haven't already... it could be a good middle ground between throwing addicts in jail and letting them walk free with no obligations.

Drug addiction is a health problem, not a criminal one, but decriminalizing only works in conjunction with a strong mental health care system; judging by the comments here, it sounds like Seattle might be lacking in that area (and they're probably not the only city with this problem).

Deinstitutionalization [2] was a good idea in theory, but the execution seems to have been botched.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpatient_commitment

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

leftyted• 7 years ago

I think the ultimate source of Seattle's wishy-washy attitude toward serious crime is summed up nicely by an excerpt from something written by Ilhan Omar:

The desire to commit violence is not inherent to people — it is the consequence of systematic alienation; people seek violent solutions when the process established for enacting change is inaccessible to them. Fueled by disaffection turned to malice, if the guilty were willing to kill and be killed fighting perceived injustice, imagine the consequence of them hearing, “I believe you can be rehabilitated. I want you to become part of my community, and together we will thrive.” We use this form of distributive justice for patients with chemical dependencies; treatment and societal reintegration. The most effective penance is making these men ambassadors of reform.

Basically, criminals are protestors against the inequity of society. This is a very old idea. Dostoevsky talks about it in Crime and Punishment.

My sense is that, no, people committing crimes are not "protestors" and treating them as such simply doesn't work. Tough love works. Punishment works.

I just hope that, when the pendulum swings back on this nonsense, it doesn't swing back too far the other way. I think it probably will, though.

frankus2• 7 years ago

Optics aside, it seems like the obvious solution is to give people a free supply of safe drugs and a safe place to use them.

Drug users would be better off because their supply would be safe and they wouldn't need to resort to crime to pay for it. Current supervised consumption sites have also been extremely successful at preventing overdose deaths and somewhat successful at directing users who want treatment to the available resources.

The public would be better off because of the same crime reduction, as well as the reduction of violence and disorder stemming from black markets for illegal drugs. Public use would become so much more of a hassle than the legal alternative that it would likely disappear.

The government would be better off because acquiring currently-illegal drugs legally is super cheap (most of them literally grow on trees, or at least plants), and is almost certainly vastly cheaper than the current prohibition strategy.

The obvious problems:

- No one is going to want a consumption site anywhere near their neighborhood. - Some number of people who would otherwise quit might continue to use if it were cheap and easy. - Something along the lines of "I'd love to sit around all day watching TV and drinking beer but I have bills to pay and I don't want my taxes paying for some low-life to get high."

blackflame70004• 7 years ago

One has to wonder if the softening of the public stance on drug use is leading to more drug users which are leading to more homelessness.

cameronc56• 7 years ago

I currently live in pioneer square, close to one of the homeless shelters. Here are some of the things I have seen in the last 1.5 years:

1. People openly shitting on the sidewalk.

2. Ambulances carrying away a junkie that overdosed and died in a doorwell

3. Having to push a sleeping person out of the way of the doorwell just to leave my apartment

4. random screaming, for hours almost every night

5. my girlfriend gets constantly harrassed

6. I puked in the alley our moving truck was in while moving in because there was so much human feces.

7. A naked person crabwalking down a hill

8. someone ripped a metal garbage can off of its stand, grabbed a vodka bottle that was inside it and threw it at a passing car, breaking their window

9. mass vandalism and theft of rental bicycles.

10. someone throwing those rental bicycles into the street

11. one homeless person attempted to steal a backpack from another homeless person having a panic attack or overdose WHILE A COP WAS HELPING THEM.

12. bike theft in broad daylight on 1st avenue

13. drug deals and needles. I have a picture of an abandoned backpack with dozens of needles sprawled around it

14. someone got shot at the 7/11 at night

15. a month later, there was broken glass from a bullet hole at the cherry street cafe.

16. someone using their gun as a pillow

17. tent camping, where i have to walk into the street to get around them.

18. people wandering around in the streets aimlessly, almost getting hit by cars.

19. ive been harrased in restaurants by homeless people that come in and want my food.

20. shopping carts full of trash, parked on the sidewalk every day.

Seattle decriminilizing drugs is one thing. But decriminilizing these kinds of petty crimes has turned pioneer square into something shameful and dangerous.

In my opinion, the city should not decriminilize drugs until AFTER the facilities (rehab and involuntary mental health institutions) are in place.

The non-drug related crimes should not be tolerated either way, and what Dan Satterberg prosecutes/charges with regards to repeat offenders is criminal in itself. His personal agenda is putting the public at risk and he should resign immediately.

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

The war on drug users -very profitable for private jailers - certainly failed society. A real 'war on drugs' would mean serious jailtime and fines for kingpins up the supply ladder. Until that becomes palatable, it makes little sense to ruin the lives of their victims.

A recent story in WaPo suggests that ball may be rolling. Author interviewed here:

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

diogenescynic4• 7 years ago

San Francisco beat them to it. People openly shoot up heroin and and smoke meth and nothing happens. I see the same people often right in front of BART escalators selling drugs. It’s created a situation where cops claim crime is going down because the numbers are going down, but that’s because they just ignore the problem and don’t report what’s going on. California legalized hard drugs with Prop 57 and Prop 47 allows people to sell $1000 a day and it’s just a citation. So now there are multiple blocks where tweakers and junkies are selling stole luggage from breaking into rental cars and robbing tourists... Welcome to hell. Cops only give speeding tickets and enforce laws against normal folks. San Francisco is a miserable place for normal folks.

In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

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