Democratic leaders decriminalize drug use

Deaths rise dramatically. Was that intended?

Seattle is the poster boy for the Democratic progressive view that drug use should be decriminalized and safe spaces provided for addicts to shoot up. The idea is to make it less likely addicts will succumb to their addiction if they can access clean needles and be unexposed to prosecution for their drug usage. Like most “progressive ideas” it is long on theory and short on realism.

I lost my eldest daughter to drug abuse. I am not driven by any ideology, just by common sense. That seems to absent from progressives.

Here are the data for drug overdose deaths in Seattle. The dramatic rise in carnage from drug abuse in the Seattle area is directly correlated with its left wing policies and inane programs.

Put simply, if you make it easier for young people to access fentanyl and tell them you have a “safe space” where they can use it, more people will try it and more will die from overdoses. Why do Democrats permit (even encourage) an open Southern border with a surging rise in fentanlyl smuggling into United States and think the solution is to decriminalize its use? The death toll in Seattle is so large the city is having trouble finding a place to store the bodies of those who died from fentanlyl use.

Seattle is not alone. Fentanyl related deaths are an epidemic in United States with over 56,000 people dying from overdoses in 2020 alone.

United States has severe penalties for selling drugs, as much as 40 years in prison. That would be a deterrent if the laws were enforced but leftist prosecutors funded by George Soros have made sure that few crimes are actually prosecuted and simple possession of drugs is pretty well ignored. The odds of a drug user exposing their supplier is low if the user is not facing a severe penalty themselves when caught with drugs in their possession. Criminals often offer up those responsible for more serious crimes to lessen their own liability. Democrats tacitly endorse drug use as an “acceptable lifestyle choice” without concern for the costs it imposes on society as a whole.

Finding the right balance is complex but it will never be found if no one is looking. Filling jail cells with people who use pot didn’t help anyone and destroyed a lot of young persons careers and opportunities. But filling jail cells with people crossing the Southern border carrying fentanyl would be a welcome advance.

Don’t get the idea that the drug smugglers comprise mostly illegal immigrants. In reality, the porous border makes it easy for U.S. citizens to smuggle fentanyl into the country and most of the narcotics seized at the border were in the possession of American citizens.

The fact that only a small percentage of illegal immigrants were charged with smuggling drugs into the U.S. points to two realities: One, the raw numbers of illegal immigrants is now so large (about 2 million at annual rate) that the percentage who are smuggling drugs can be small even if there are a lot of smugglers. Two, American citizens see opportunity in drug smuggling and know the border is poorly protected and customs and immigration personnel overwhelmed, so they are less at risk to apprehension.

Joe Biden and his progressive extremists are responsible. Soft on crime policies, “defund the police slogans” and “safe spaces” for drug users to shoot up have not reduced the carnage, just created massive homeless camps in Los Angelese, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland where ordinary citizens find it unsafe to shop in the city centre. A predictable outcome of a “feel good” policy that does not work?