My take is that we're going from a criminalization based "screw them, warehouse them in jail and ruin their lives with felony convictions" policy to a laissez-faire "screw them, let them die on the street" policy.
The part that hasn't changed is "screw them." Nobody really cares about these people. They're viewed as an inconvenience and the debate is over the least costly way to either warehouse them or shove them aside somewhere. Most people view addiction as a moral failing and think addicts deserve whatever they get.
I've never been in favor of drug criminalization except possibly in the case of the most addictive and deadly hard drugs (crystal meth, fentanyl, concentrated opiates), but I always hoped that legalization would come with a redirection of funding from prisons and police into treatment. The latter part just isn't happening, or isn't happening with any effectiveness. My take is that nobody gives a damn and decriminalization is more about saving money than freedom or better treatment approaches.
The problem as I see it is that any "treatment" requires the addict wanting to be treated
You could argue that the Taliban are the government that cares the most about addicts, because they are actually making addicts change the way a parent corrects a child
The part that hasn't changed is "screw them." Nobody really cares about these people. They're viewed as an inconvenience and the debate is over the least costly way to either warehouse them or shove them aside somewhere. Most people view addiction as a moral failing and think addicts deserve whatever they get.
I've never been in favor of drug criminalization except possibly in the case of the most addictive and deadly hard drugs (crystal meth, fentanyl, concentrated opiates), but I always hoped that legalization would come with a redirection of funding from prisons and police into treatment. The latter part just isn't happening, or isn't happening with any effectiveness. My take is that nobody gives a damn and decriminalization is more about saving money than freedom or better treatment approaches.