The Blaze
Overdose rates in the state of Oregon rose by 700% after voters in the state approved a ballot measure to decriminalize all hard drugs.
Voters in the state of Oregon voted to decriminalize all hard drugs in the pursuit of encouraging those struggling with drug addiction to seek medical help. The measure, referred to as Ballot Measure 110, was the first of its kind in the U.S. and went into effect in February of 2021 after being approved by the public the year before. More
Well Pelosi did say “God gave us free will”, to defend the murder of unborn children, so I’m sure the Democrat party agrees with a persons right to overdose. Good job libs.
Not to affirm the correctness of hard drug legalization, there are other societal negative ramifications involved here besides the practitioner offing himself, but isn’t this just another case of people knowingly indulging in risky behavior and making bad choices?
Using hard drugs is very risky, it was risky before they were decriminalized and equally risky afterward, nothing has changed. If we want to lament the fact that people are killing themselves by doing stupid shit, OK, it is sad, but nobody is putting a gun to their head and making them shoot up.
On an evolutionary level, nature is weeding out the gene pool that is defective or that should not procreate.
For many years Oregon has wanted to be a leader and show the way for the other states.
But the only thing this liberal state ever led was failure.
Call me a ghoul, but I’m not seeing a down side to this. You want to be a junkie, then by all means be a junkie. Just understand the chance of dying is much greater than not being a junkie. Chlorine for the gene pool.
I do not believe these were “unintentional consequences.”
Nor will there be “unintentional consequences” when people start dying from the jab…. “You could have just as easily said no.”
The cost to the tax-payer is probably horrendous, but what-the-hell, it’s only tax money and most politicians assume there’s no limit to that.
I’m curious as to how many dealers overdosed and/or died, or are they too smart to use the stuff they’re peddling?
About five cars were broken into and some damaged on our street last weekend by thieves looking for stuff to sell/swap for drugs. This has become a regular occurrence and the police say “log onto our website and make a report.” That’s the extent of the policing in our neighborhood. Pfft.
…nearly 100% of the time I ever see a police or aid vehicle, it is stopped with a crowd of well-compensated city employees ministering aid to a chronic degenerate lying on the sidewalk. I think that’s all the fire and police departments exist for anymore.
@AA It breaks my heart what has happened to Seattle. I was in Columbus and Canton Ohio less than 2 weeks ago. I didn’t see a homeless camp or blue tarp outpost on a sidewalk in either place. They probably exist but it’s the exception not the rule.
Another friend is leaving WA state. Outta here on 6/23 and headed to Greenville SC. 😞
Well, that’s a solid 700+ votes in the dem column in November.
Read that incorrectly. That’s however many more votes solidly in the Dem column.
AbigailAdams
JUNE 5, 2022 AT 3:58 PM
“…nearly 100% of the time I ever see a police or aid vehicle, it is stopped with a crowd of well-compensated city employees ministering aid to a chronic degenerate lying on the sidewalk. I think that’s all the fire and police departments exist for anymore.”
…I’ve covered this subject numerous times on different threads from a personal and professional standpoint, so I won’t repeat here.
It boils down to this;
1) It is in no way appropriate for a rescue to be given or withheld based on a snap judgement of the value of a human life. God loves them ALL, and all were created by Him. It is not for me to say who is “worthy” or not.
2) An “unknown down” is just that. Someone is down. You don’t know why. You may try to infer from where it happens, prison tattoos, etc., but you don’t know for real who that person is or why they are there. I lost a 19 year old last year at work for what I would have swore up and down was drugs based on appearance and circumstances, but he had none and had simply died of a heart arrhythmia instead. Pretty hard for a dead kid to fake his own autopsy report.
3) Narcan is given for MOST “Unknown Down” patients whether you suspect opioids or not, because it can do nothing bad and may do immediate good. And another thing about visual assumptions is that I covered an assisted living facility where old folks od’d on opioids because they forgot they took them and took them again. Narcan helps there too. Don’t assume because Narcan is administered that its an ipso facto junkie. Its just possible cause for an unknown down that can be quickly and safely eliminated.
4) whether you or I love them or not, someone does. Not just God, either. I can’t describe what a 10 year old looks like as his father is lowered into his grave.
5) God gave ME a second chance. Who am I to not give one to someone else to seek His face. It may be a “Come To Jesus” moment for someone, you never know. Only Jesus can save, but they have to be alive to come to Him. If I can facilitate that meeting, I will. I owe it to Him whatever I may think of the person doing drugs to do just that.
6) Rescuers themselves can be affected by Fentanyl, its that potent. One of those unknown downs may have been a guy just trying to save a life.
7) There’s people right here that can tell you what a junkie’s life is worth. Look up “geoff the aardvark
SEPTEMBER 6, 2021 AT 5:45 PM” on down on this thread to get a very personal account of 2 such lives that affected countless others.
https://iotwreport.com/comedian-finds-out-the-hard-way-fentanyl-and-cocaine-dont-mix/
…you’re a good-hearted woman who lives in an Increasingly bad place, so all I’m doing is trying to encourage that, yes, police and FDs and inceeasingly Good Sams ARE spending larger amounts of time trying to revive maybe addics, many of whom will relapse, but it does serve God’s purpose that they do so. Because of that, I would see it as a sign of His extreme patience with us and mercy towards the least of us that He still gives people a heart to try to rescue a dirty junky. Also too, I’d be more worried if the state were to just leave them lie. Because that will happen when the Communists become confident in their victory. So interpret it as a good secular sign that they do not.
Yes, too long again, and to a good woman, sorry. But I gotta be me. Thank you for bearing with me because it’s just not a subject that fits in 140 characters, and so neither do I.
God Bless,
SNS
I was raised liberal parents, if the government said something was okay to do then by golly it was good to do cause the government was looking out for us little folk and we needn’t worry about it.
We have a homeless problem here, I’m getting more and more intolerable with them. Some of them are arsonists. We’ve had multiple fires started here since fire season has started. One arsonists was able to burn down an apartment building under construction. Another arsonist(s) has tried to burn down another apartment complex and so far has been successful in burning down 4 units….all Section 8. Fires also set out in the wildlife areas here. Also dead bodies being found here and there is an everyday thing. Hot and dry the next few days – 107-degreee days are ahead and more fires.
An unanticipated bonus. Most junkies are total loser pigs, and the world is better with them gone. Too bad the ones who will survive will be mutant monsters who will make the streets a complete hellscape.
Self-correcting problem!
Goldenfoxx
JUNE 5, 2022 AT 5:57 PM
“…Another arsonist(s) has tried to burn down another apartment complex and so far has been successful in burning down 4 units….all Section 8. ”
…this isn’t new or necessarily drug/homeless related. They were burning down their own Section 8 apartment buildings after stealing the smoke detector batteries in the 80s/90s too.
Mostly because they were bored.
Speaking as someone who was actually homeless and living in an abandoned vehicle, I never once considered committing any criminal act. The only criminal act that happened around me was when two cops accosted me and took all my money – at least they let me keep my ID.
Now ask me what I think of cops or any other Government Cadre.
Could no longer tolerate what happened to Portland. Got the hell out.
OK, I recently read a book titled “Unintended Consequences”. It’s a good book, somewhat inspirational. Relatively easy read. I’ll probably not bring it up again, I only brought it up because the headline to the story contained unintended consequences. I recommend the book.
Grumpy – the old expression from the 1930’s:
“We may be poor, but we’re not immoral.”
Darwin to the rescue. Let nature run it’s course and in a generation or two the problem will go away.
this is not ‘unintended’ at all! this is exactly what they hope to achieve.
they want to decimate the ‘surplus population’ by any means necessary. giving deadly drugs to anyone that is weak enough to have such low self-worth to achieve for themselves a self-induced coma (& hopeful death) to escape their present situation. it’s another means to create that ‘consequence’.
it’s why they so strongly push unfettered abortion of the unborn (& just born), not punishing crime (including violent crime), bringing in mass quantities of un-vetted illegals, allowing their private police forces to wantonly kill innocent civilians, shutting down baby formula factories, deliberately putting infected patients in w/ nursing home residents to spread as much invection & death as possible. developing deadly RNA-altering concoctions & passing them off as ‘vaccines’ (to the point of actually altering the definition of ‘vaccine) shutting down the production of oil, gas, electricity (where just 2 short years ago we were self-sufficient in energy), prolonging a war half-way across the globe, that we have no business in as a country interest, which should have been over in a month, to hide their corruption & helping to starve half the world further by denying the Western World & Africa fertilizer, wheat & heating oil
how could anyone possibly deny that we already have an established two-tiered justice system? one that suppresses us & our rights, & theirs that allows their criminal enterprise of using the ‘laws’ that they pass to steal from us & allowing them to flaunt the ‘law’ w/ impunity. incarcerating people, denying them due process, without charging them w/ a crime or allowing them basic civil rights for a political vendetta. inside trader exemptions. deliberately lying exemptions (Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! … “worked, didn’t it?”) (private body guards (w/ automatic ‘assault weapons’ … oh my!), paid for by us. free air travel, paid for by us. free gyms, paid for by us.
they make ‘hate crimes’ only apply to one shade of skin color & deny justice to them by calling them hateful names & label them, all in the name of ‘justice’. they deny our heritage, but have nothing to show in their past, or present that creates a better system for the vast majority of the people they want to rule than the system already in place.
suck it up, peasants … you get handcuffed & perp walked … we get off w/ a hand-picked biased jury, presided over by a bought-off corrupt judge …. suckers!
this is not ‘justice’ … it is rule by force … it is rule by might
yes, this is the plan, this is the ‘unintended consequences’. whom they don’t selectively kill off will be told what, where & how to do what they train us to do … the rest will passively line up for the cattle cars
it’s a Brave, New World Order …
suckersComradesWhat SNS said about being careful about judging addicts….
I work in Oak Ridge, TN since moving to Knoxville 7 years ago. Very different demographic than what I dealt with in the Chicago suburbs.
Oak Ridge…. with the National Laboratory…. and the Manhattan Project.
I have had so many patients with unusual cancer presentations. If they’re lucky they worked for the lab and have top notch care provided for by the Dept of Labor benefit. I had one chemist who had five…. count them FIVE primary non-metastatic cancers. If they’re unlucky, they’re one of the locals whose dad was a janitor at the lab and when he came home at the end of his shift and mom washed his clothes with the rest of the family’s clothes. Secondary or tertiary exposures leading to everyone in the family getting sick.
At one point in history the local docs were told when dealing with people coming to be seen for unusual ailments “if they didn’t work for the lab, ignore them”.
I had a patient (James) who was 61 years old and the last man standing of his group of childhood friends, they all played in a creek together as kids. Porters Creek with the runoff from the laboratory has killed more people than anyone can count.
James was a drug addict because physicians refused to treat his various diseases and he sought relief by any means available. As his illnesses worsened his drug use to manage his symptoms worsened and he was ignored all the more. The only medical relief he ever had was when he enrolled in hospice.
I have had so many patients like him in the past 7 years.
On the other hand there are several pillbillys, Methican Americans and peanut-butter-and-crackhead sandwiches around Tennessee I do recognize sometimes people just don’t care to live.
An average of 80 deaths per month out of a population of ~4.3 million over the whole of Oregon?
0.0000186%
With 36 counties, that’s (assuming an even distribution) 2.2 deaths per month per county.
I don’t know how many rescue squads, &c, Oregon has and I don’t know how this compares with other states, but it seems like an overblown issue (not to imply that every life is not sacred).
And – there are NO “unintended” consequences in politics.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
How can you make a blanket statement that every life is sacred? It’s not! If you do not care about your own life, you surely don’t care about others. I suppose you think that its OK to ignore hurricane/flood evacuation orders and endanger other people’s lives that try to save your dumb ass. Sorry, but drug deaths are self-inflicted so I have no pity. There are too many that want a better life that are deserving of my help and sympathy.
God is the Father of every lout, dope addict, sinner, and saint.
It is for Him to judge.
I don’t know (except in my own case) why anyone would use drugs/alcohol/&c. to the point of ceasing to be human.
Pity aside, a crime is still a crime – and if someone commits a crime to satisfy his drug lust, he should be punished for that crime.
“It rains on the just and the unjust alike.”
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
That’s 0.00186 %
Sorry bout that.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
oldvet50
JUNE 6, 2022 AT 7:55 AM
“How can you make a blanket statement that every life is sacred? ”
…I didn’t.
God did.
“Ephesians 2:10 – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Job 12:10 – In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
Job 31:15 – Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?”
…but that’s a little beside the point I was making anyway.
The point is that whether or not someone is worthy of life is not for me to decide, not on a five-minute summary of the circumstances I see and may be misinterpreting, and really not though I have all eternity to observe them.
Junkies do terrible things, to themselves, their families, to strangers, to society. No argument there. But God wants them to have the same second chance to repent that He gave US through His Son. No, a junkie is not worthy of redemption, but neither am I, neither are you, and neither is ANY person…but for the Blood of Christ which can redeem ANY sinner.
Even a junkie.
…but let’s sit in His throne for a moment, and lets proclaim in His voice that junkies are not worthy of life because they are junkies. So you are now morally, ethically, legally, and spiritually free to let a junkie die, no prob.
…even given all that, are you QUITE sure it’s a junkie?
I went over some circumstances above whereby one may APPEAR a junkie, but that’s not the problem at all. Hoo-Hoo-Nay-Nay above has an excellent take on why a person may be drugging themselves because doctors and the Federal Government don’t care if they are in very real pain. Do you bid them just sick it up and take it? Seems like a doctor and his staff were shot to death recently for doing exactly that.
Pain can make you as crazy as drugs can.
Don’t misunderstand, I am not a fan of people who do abuse drugs for recreational purposes. I’ve seen families destroyed and close relatives maim and kill themselves over drugs. I had patients who were frequent flyers who were brought back by Narcan only to do it all over again. I’ve cut through tangled wreckage to extract people in dire straights who’s only crime was being on the same road as a stoner driving the wrong way. Seen children’s lives ruined because a parent was Jonesing for a fix. There is no more evil being in this world than a junkie trying to get high. I have even had junkies brought back with Narcan immediately wanting to kill me for ending their buzz. It’s not fun.
I do not like junkies. I do not trust junkies. I do not believe junkies. I am disgusted by junkies.
But that doesn’t mean I can give or allow death because I think someone may be one.
And many of the same things can be said of OTHER substances. Should we judge alcoholics unworthy of life too? They are still a bigger menace to life and limb than any drug user, and alcoholism cuts deeper into every demographic. Should THEY die?
If so, teenage me would have gone to the chair. I was quite fond of the bottle in my younger days, to the detriment of myself and all who loved me.
But God gave me a second chance, and I put it down one day and never picked it up again. And since I am no one special, if I could, anyone could.
Even a junkie.
So if getting fried and harming society and others at some point in your life becomes a capital offence, very few will ever live to see adulthood.
As we are ALL sinners.
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”
Romans 3:23
…so, hate the junkie for his sin.
But just remember that he’s no less redeemable or worthy of redemption than you or I in the eyes of a merciful Lord.
Supernightshade:
Matthew 10:14 – And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet.
There are more examples, like pearls before swine, etc. but the Bible has many examples of people to stay away from. Always render help but only when it is requested. Remember, the life you save may take many more with him before he finally leaves.
“Always render help but only when it is requested.”
Agree with the first part. But I guess we’ll have to disagree on the second.
Because we may be talking past each other, I’ll just say this one more time and let it go.
You don’t KNOW that the person down…is a junkie.
So they may not have rejected the Lord at all.
And as for rejecting even certifiably evil people out of hand, see Ananias’ objections to saving the evil Saul’s life after his Damascus Road experience in Acts 9 as far as rejecting to help evil people.
A person may go on to great evil. Or they may do great good. Pail did both.
Only the Lord knows.