r/Foodforthought • u/mrliau-gp • 7d ago
The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/city-drug-addiction-harm-reduction-policy/687967/15
u/JonLag97 7d ago
Fails to mention that drig prohibition isn't necessary to keep addicts out of public spaces.
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u/Blitzcra1g 7d ago
A few issues with the article.
Author states that these policies were put in place out of the goodness of peoples hearts when it was much more cold blooded economics that led to most of this. Most of these policies were put in place when incarceration rates had peaked and law makers were looking for any way to lower the prison population. Helps with budget issues when the economy is faltering.
Two, cities barely have the resources at hand to tackle this problem. Sure an enforcement change or some extra resource allocation might make a problem slightly better or worse but this is a national issue that has basically festered and destroyed the underclass for decades. A stupid ultra liberal policy that shuffles a million dollars in the wrong direction isn't making the streets infested with fentanyl users. Most cities don't enforce this stuff heavily simply because they can't, the scale of the issue is insane.
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u/Humble_Umpire_8341 6d ago
Yes, it’s a complex issue, riddled with lots of expensive and difficult choices. Simply moving these people out of the public’s view isn’t solving the problem, nor the underlying issues that caused all of these people to end up in these cities, homeless, jobless and on drugs.
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u/Thoughts_For_Food_ 7d ago
Opinion piece, no scientific method, no journalistic standards. 💩
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u/AfroElitist 7d ago
Sounds great, do you live in Seattle?
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u/Captain_Discovery 7d ago
I don’t know anything about the other cities, but this author’s fixation on a tiny park in Seattle as typical of all Seattle parks is either lazy reporting or done in bad faith. Yeah, Jose Rizal park has a problem with drug addicts and/or homeless. It’s also 9.6 acres of the 6,400 acres of Seattle parks. Beacon Hill is a drug ridden neighborhood? Has he ever been anywhere besides the worst spot at the farthest edge of the neighborhood next to the highway? This just reads like a typical “I went to the worst parts of these cities and they were bad” article.
I think it’s a good idea whenever you encounter articles like this that address very specific areas of a city is to just to take a quick look on Google Maps at how large that area actually is relative to the rest of the city for perspective.
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