
In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs - mitchbob
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html
======
just_lurkin
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.

~~~
xenocyon
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.

~~~
rayiner
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](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](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.

~~~
kenoyer130
Freakonomics makes a case the drop in crime is directly correlated with the
passing of Roe VS Wade and the legalization of abortion. This led to the 18
year later drop in unwanted male children now adults. Very interesting read on
a very explosive topic :)

~~~
hash872
His argument has been widely debunked, and subsequent followup found that
Leavitt had a huge data error that way overstated his conclusion.

I personally find the lead/crime argument to be much more convincing

~~~
kenoyer130
It is a good chapter to read to see their methodology even if you don't agree
with the results. For example, comparing stricter/easier gun laws and prison
times in different cities and not finding a correlation to the drop in
violence since it was across the board.

~~~
hash872
Oh I've read it and am familiar with their argument, I just disagree. I don't
think analyzing gun laws on a city by city basis makes a lot of sense, they're
small, in high demand apparently, and easily smuggled from a more permissive
locale.

The abortion argument is just a pathway to IQ/some people are genetically more
predisposed to being dumb & violent, etc. It's just a step on the way there. I
hardly think I have to spell out what's the next step on the road after that.
Open white supremacists like Steve Sailer vocally support the abortion
argument, for instance

~~~
ClumsyPilot
" a pathway to IQ/some people are genetically " How did you come ot that
conclusion? Much simpler option is on the table: parents mostly abort kkids
when they know they don;t want them or can;t take care of them. Kids that are
wanted, are much more likely to be properly brought up and not become
criminals.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Kids that are wanted, are much more likely to be properly brought up and not
> become criminals.

Adopted children (in the US) are much more prone to various failures, like
becoming criminals, than are the biological children of their adoptive
parents.

It seems unlikely that this is due to the adopted children being unwanted.

------
dymk
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.

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

~~~
tjr225
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.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It wasn’t this bad in the 90s or 80s, when crime was higher everywhere else.
Relatively speaking, Seattle is worse off than it was before, which is a bit
sad for the non transplants.

~~~
thomasmeeks
I dunno, the common refrain I hear from native Seattleites is that many places
-- like Fremont, Ballard, and West Seattle, were truly awful in the 80s & 90s.
Usually just at the mention of where I live, which is one of those
neighborhoods.

Compared to Orlando and Salt Lake City, Seattle feels about on par to me with
regards to safety and the homeless problem (adjusted for the much higher
population & density). Which is useless information because it is an anecdote,
but the best way to bring data into a conversation is a lot of useless
competing anecdotes.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I lived in all three of those places in the early 90s (as a UW student and
with my aunt near Alaska Junction in West Seattle). No, at least then, they
weren’t as bad, or bad at all.

Ballard? I’m not even sure where it being dangerous would come from, maybe
getting run down by a bad Norwegian driver? Checkout Cops in Ballard:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hGlDVmBLibg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hGlDVmBLibg)

(Yes, that is Bill Nye)

~~~
sleepybrett
I was mugged multiple time in the u-district in the 90s. The ave in general is
far less sketchy than it used to be.

Ballard is much worse. It's gone from an enclave of retired scandy fishermen
to hip neighborhood with a thriving walkable main drag. Because much of the
street parking is still free the homeless living out of barely functional vans
and rvs can live without hassle and attempt to panhandle on the drag. I
imagine that at least some of those vehicles are also essentially drug
emporiums further concentrating the homeless population that is hooked. ...
Still not as sketchy as the u-district in the 90s though.

------
dcolkitt
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
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_.

~~~
sukilot
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.

------
nostromo
... 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-...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-of-
trying-to-attack-strangers-with-pitchfork-outside-ballard-post-office/)

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...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/more-
than-32000-syringes-collected-in-pilot-needle-program/)

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

[https://2qibqm39xjt6q46gf1rwo2g1-wpengine.netdna-
ssl.com/wp-...](https://2qibqm39xjt6q46gf1rwo2g1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/10/9061386_web1_M-Needles-1-EDH-171024.jpg)

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.

~~~
empath75
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.

~~~
CPLX
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.

~~~
fzeroracer
That's just objectively wrong. NYC has a higher homeless population both in
sheer volume and per 100,000 people. So what is NYC doing to stop the growth
of their homeless population beyond making it out of sight and out of mind?

~~~
thatswrong0
If their homeless population is far less dangerous and destructive to the
lives of all the other citizens that live there, then they're doing
_something_ right, even if their homeless population is somewhat bigger per
capita.

------
throwaway827364
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.

~~~
thatswrong0
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.

~~~
fzeroracer
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.

~~~
thatswrong0
Noted! Though I've lived in NYC before, and I think it has, at a glance,
pretty sane policies for a giant diverse city (though I could be totally
wrong!). It felt a lot safer there than it does in SF on a day-to-day basis.
That's where I was planning on going.

------
koolba
> “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.

~~~
phil248
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.

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

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
Hiding the world from our children instead of letting them see how awful the
adults have made it is dishonest, at best.

I prefer to teach kids how to find compassion for people in such situations.

~~~
sempron64
Do you have kids? If you let them near active drug users as an object lesson,
you need CPS called on you.

~~~
leetcrew
are you sure you aren't letting your kids near "active drug users" when you
take them to family gatherings?

~~~
sempron64
Active as in currently shooting up.

~~~
frankus
I think he was alluding to non-injected drug use, like drinking beer or
smoking weed.

Of course by the time injecting street drugs into your veins seems like your
least-bad option, you're in a pretty desperate place and maybe not someone
that kids should be around while you're using.

~~~
leetcrew
I thought the post I was replying to was implying that people on drugs are
inherently dangerous to be around, so all I was really trying to suggest is
that there are a lot of people who appear "respectable" but are hiding a
serious drug habit.

it seems that sempron64 meant people who are literally in the act of shooting
up. I guess I can understand not wanting a child to see that, although I
question whether that's really as bad as we are supposed to think. it can
certainly be unsettling to see for the first time, but all it ever suggests to
me is that the person has a truly miserable life. I honestly doubt that it's
as bad as pervasive images of people drinking, smoking, partying and having a
good time. the latter seems a lot more likely to lead an impressionable mind
astray.

------
RickS
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.

~~~
sukilot
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?

------
sprafa
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.

~~~
allana
Washington State is one of the heaviest users of legal marijuana:
[https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-
world/sewage-t...](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/sewage-
testing-in-washington-confirms-rise-in-marijuana-use-1691682/)

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

~~~
proverbialbunny
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.

------
taurath
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.

~~~
magashna
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.

~~~
sukilot
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!

------
thomascgalvin
> 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.

~~~
drcode
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.

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

~~~
timdev2
Anecdotally, I observed daytime public intravenous drug use within my first 3
hours on the ground in Frankfurt a few years ago. I don't know exactly where,
but it was within walking radius of the main train station. I think it was
in/adjacent to some kind of red-light district.

------
phil248
"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.

------
cronix
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.

------
rdl
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.

~~~
whateveracct
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.

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

------
throwawaysea
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.

------
allana
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.

~~~
throwaway827364
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?

~~~
allana
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.

------
kerng
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...

------
leftyted
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.

------
cabaalis
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...](https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/6f124f_f4eed992eaff402f88ddb4a649a9f5e6.pdf)

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

------
cameronc56
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.

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

------
40acres
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.

------
AcerbicZero
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.

------
frankus
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."

------
md224
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpatient_commitment)

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

------
synack
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.

------
djsumdog
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-...](https://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-the-
unaffordable-care-act/)

------
diogenescynic
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.

------
8bitsrule
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...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=753114950)

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

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jmaxj7/this-new-
england-t...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jmaxj7/this-new-england-town-
has-a-groundbreaking-new-way-to-deal-with-opioid-overdose-506)

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

------
blackflame7000
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.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/xMFni](http://archive.is/xMFni)

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

------
andrepd
Was Bunny Colvin ahead of his time?

------
arikr
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opin...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-
crisis-drug-seattle.amp.html)

This link above might bypass the paywall.

------
mmilano
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.

------
daenz
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...](https://mynorthwest.com/1458667/seattle-offender-coffee-toddler-
calderon/)

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

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

That's pretty rad.

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

------
pgnas
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.

------
caiocaiocaio
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.

------
ndarwincorn
> “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.

~~~
ndarwincorn
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.

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

~~~
ndarwincorn
Thanks man.

What's especially insane about it is that most of the folks commenting and
voting are members of the working class.

Sure, they might have ill-gotten capital in the form of a deed (ignoring the
likelihood that there's a lien on that deed) on a tiny parcel of
stolen/colonized land or vested stock in the monopolist they work for, but
that's a pittance in the scheme of things. They still need to sell their labor
in order to meet their needs for food, shelter, community participation, etc.

We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence
that they think they're significantly different from the people without
housing they see on the street here every day.

~~~
sershe
In the USSR, not working while being able was a crime that, although rarely
enforced, carried huge social stigma; and, if you were an "undesirable" on the
level of the subset of the drug addicted homeless in Seattle, neither the
police nor the class-conscious workers would treat you like a human being.
You'd be in forced treatment or jail (after being beat up, possibly) in a
blink. An attempted clear delineation of the working class and the underclass
(based on the class consciousness where the "parasites" group isn't only
composed of the rich), is one of the few good things about "real leftism"... I
wish the American leftists picked it up. In the USSR you could have observed a
lot of different people in the same exact circumstances (or as close as the
government could get them to be - standard apartments, jobs, education, ...)
making completely different life choices, to really appreciate that. There
were much fewer oppression/inequality/... excuses, but the result was much the
same.

There's no need to have empathy towards the underclass silenced by tech money,
or whatever. I never had it to start with and never will; and I feel like lots
of the people you are trying to "reach" are like that to a large degree, it's
just not a fashionable thing to articulate clearly these days. I personally
feel completely fine voting for Sanders and other economic progressives,
supporting free healthcare, public education, low-income housing, etc. while
simultaneously having negative empathy towards habitual criminals and
underclass in general. These are not mutually exclusive, as far as I'm
concerned they are mutually reinforcing.

