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fieryscribe t1_j60ipkf wrote

> The bill would also create a task force to meet and study the best ways to “[treat] substance use disorder as a disease, rather than a criminal behavior.”
> ...
> The task force would help determine the personal-use possession thresholds for each kind of drug that would be reduced to a civil violation under the law.

Shouldn't the task force study this before the decriminalization happens?

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mission17 t1_j60s2my wrote

Just because we don’t adequately treat addiction as a disease doesn’t mean we should continue to treat it as a crime.

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fieryscribe t1_j60t6jo wrote

> It would eliminate the lowest-level drug charge in New York: drug possession in the seventh degree, a Class A misdemeanor. The charge currently applies to under a half ounce of heroin or opioids, or under 50 milligrams of PCP, 500 milligrams of cocaine, 1 gram of ketamine or 28 grams of GHB. It’s punishable by up to one year in prison. > Removing arrests, jail or prison as potential penalties, the bill would instead make low-level possession a civil violation, subject to a $50 fine.

As I understand it, it would remove this misdemeanor for all of these amounts. And then, they would set up a task force ... to figure out what amounts count as civil violations and what doesn't (which presumably would then be treated as a crime). What happens if they come up with the exact same amounts? Or lower?

Unless they (a) know the 21 members of this future task force and (b) know their expert opinion on all of these quantities, I'm not sure how this makes sense.

You've mistaken my stance on this. I'm of the opinion all soft drugs should be decriminalized. I just don't understand why they'd remove this first and then decide the quantities later, even if those quantities may end up being the same as now.

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