Daily Translation #10

即便是西雅图和波特兰的进步派也受够了毒品合法化

在几年前，受“黑命贵”运动的影响，俄勒冈州和华盛顿州进行了刑事司法改革将毒品合法化。这是一次彻底的失败，其后果便是导致了数千人的死亡。如今，选民们表示已经忍无可忍了，但情况真的会有所改变么？

在曾经充满活力的波特兰和西雅图，极左活动家和政客曾带头发起运动要求将警察和更高的刑事司法机构从禁毒管理中移除。借着乔治·弗洛伊德事件引发的反警情绪的东风，激进左派人士说服了美国西北部的民众，为毒品合法化开了绿灯。

三年过去了，选民们正要求着恢复毒品管制。

据最近的爱默生学院民意调查显示，在俄勒冈州有56%的民众要求全面撤销措施110。措施110使得在州境内个人持有非法药物的行为合法化。同样的，根据西雅图时报和萨福克大学的民意调查，在经历了由于过量用药而死亡的人数暴增后，60%的西雅图民众支持对公共吸毒的人进行逮捕，有64%的民众支持对持有毒品的人进行刑事处罚。

民意的改变应当是意料之中的。毒品合法化的拥护者曾承诺会为瘾君子提供他们所迫切需要的帮助，避免“将成瘾定为犯罪”。但他们并没有坚持到底。

在波特兰所在的摩特诺玛县，因过量服用芬太尼等合成阿片类药物致死的人数在2018-2022年间增长了500%。这一情况也没有缓和的趋势。与去年相比，2023年5月到6月间该县收到的有关吸毒过量的紧急电话翻了一番。根据西雅图的数据，在毒品合法法案推出后，金县每一年的吸毒过量致死人数都创下新高。2023年（目前是915人）有望超过2020年最高记录的1000人。

但是，正如我在我即将出版的新书《什么正在杀死美国》（What’s Killing America）中所详述的一样，毒品合法化的拥护者们并没有兑现他们会治疗成瘾的承诺。他们的失信是必然的：激进左翼人士从没有打算优先考虑毒瘾治疗。相反，他们采取了一种激进的措施来对付吸毒者，并且他们也已经计划在西北部地区以外进行。这种措施被称为“减害”。

此种措施旨在减轻吸毒对健康造成的影响，无论是身体健康还是心理健康。比如说，共用针头会传播疾病，那么就由公共卫生部门和非营利组织发放干净的针头。这能够防止传染艾滋病和其他由血液传播的疾病。还有，与其让吸毒者独自注射海洛因或吸食芬太尼，不如为他们提供一个有专业医疗人员看守的“安全吸毒室”。这样在护士的看管下就能够防止他们过量吸毒。

但当更多具有进步思想的政客和活动家对当地项目掌权后，他们则更变本加厉。首先，建立“安全吸毒室”的想法真是，坦白讲，有大病。政府部门和非营利组织给吸毒者规定空间让他们舒舒服服地吸毒，这怕不是来搞笑的。要是真这样做的话，不如在他们糟践自己身体的时候配上音乐，比如舒缓的瀑布流水和清脆的鸟叫蝉鸣，再在房间内打上柔和的光，配俩按摩师给他们放松肩膀。

但当这些措施在加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省的温哥华施行后，左翼美国政客马上紧跟潮流，四处探查哪座城市能够成为美国第一个吸毒窝子。

纽约市卫生部大力推崇这种减害措施，并在地铁海报中宣传道：“吸毒莫彷徨，安全有保障”。还有一些海报强调吸食前对毒品进行测试的重要性。比如“预防吸食毒品过量，芬太尼试纸来帮忙”就建议吸毒者测试毒品，与其他人一起轮流吸毒，以防止用药过量。纽约市卫生部甚至警告称不吸毒也可以预防死亡，但这显然是对吸毒群体的侮辱。

（译者注：去查了一下，纽约市还真发布过类似的宣传：https://www.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/basas/fentanyl-test-strips-brochure-sc.pdf。里面详细介绍了如何检测药品里的芬太尼含量。他真的，我哭死。）

质疑减害措施是对这些自由开放的城市的亵渎。如果你胆敢说一句不好，极左人士就会把你打成想要迫害吸毒者的禽兽。这就是为什么那些高高在上的进步活动家和政客声称他们只想要拯救生命，然后把你骂成污蔑吸毒者的反派人物。

全国减害联盟称“社会上存在的这种对吸毒者的污蔑会使他们丧失自尊，认为自己不配被有尊严地对待，并使他们感到恐惧和孤独。”这些拥护者称人们不应该对吸毒者妄下判断，因为这会使他们觉得自己“不受欢迎或者不受那些提供服务的人员待见”，进而对治疗产生妨碍。我们应当相信，阻止吸毒者进行治疗的不是不计后果的吸毒，不是对成瘾张开怀抱，而是人们对吸毒者抱有的成见。

这种做作的说辞是为了让反对者闭嘴。进步人士的减害政策基本上没有遭到反对。他们用这种言论责备公众，使他们屈服，并要求进步社区去帮助那些需要帮助的吸毒者。

这种道德绑架在左翼城市中行得通，这些城市中的民众都渴望成为解决社会弊病的革命先锋。这些计谋使得极左公共卫生官员和政客能够把政策继续向左推行。

尽管波特兰和西雅图的民众表达了他们对极端药物政策的不满，但是他们在近期仍不会看到任何改变。极左活动家不会放弃。

尽管波特兰的左翼市长泰德•惠勒曾要求废止措施110，俄勒冈健康正义恢复联盟则警告称如果废止措施110，该县就会损失5800万美元的药物治疗资金。当然，这项协议十分狡猾，因为药物成瘾者很难被治愈，所以资金就流向了减害设备，包括针头和管子。甚至惠勒都在3月发言称“两年后的今天，我们已经见证了毒品合法化，但是我们没有见到任何治疗成瘾的手段。”在毒品合法化推出的近三年后，由措施110资助的第一个排毒设施在经历推迟后将于本月开放。

在华盛顿州，民主党州议员在毒品合法化两年后做出了让步，将持有毒品规定为严重轻罪。但西雅图还没有更新其市政法规来适应这一变化。在现有的政策下，金县检察官办公室将不会追查有关持有毒品的案件。

市议会的极端人士拒绝将这些案件移交给西雅图市检察官，一名共和党议员称她将在合适的时机进行指控。但是议会中大部分的极左人士希望采取更轻的惩罚措施。而西雅图市长布鲁斯·哈勒尔的办公室甚至还没有起草一份替代，折中的毒品方案，这份方案本应当在上个月进行投票。

作为生活在西北部地区的人，我以前也见过这样的事：民众对激进的城市治理表示失望，但他们也没有给政客们施压，要求做出改变。通常情况下，他们还是会把票投给同样激进的左翼政客。

毒品合法化问题会最终促使西雅图的选民采取行动吗？时间会给我们答案。

 

重点词汇：

Spearhead：带头，领导

Buoyed by：受到支持或鼓舞

Eschew：避开，回避

follow through：坚持到底

by design：故意的，有意为之

push the envelope：挑战极限（褒），试探底线（贬）

stigmatize：污蔑，污名化

sacrilege：亵渎

perch：栖息，坐落于

get in the way of：妨碍

Original Article:

Even progressives in Seattle and Portland are fed up with making drugs legal

In the past few years, Oregon and Washington have effectively legalized drugs as part of the Black Lives Matter movement’s criminal justice reforms. It’s been an abject failure, taking thousands of lives. Now, voters say they’ve had enough. But will anything actually change?

In the once vibrant cities of Portland and Seattle, radical left activists and politicians spearheaded campaigns to remove police – and the greater criminal justice system – from drug enforcement. Buoyed by anti-police sentiment in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the Radical Left were able to convince voters in the Pacific Northwest to green light drug decriminalization.

Three years later, voters are demanding a return to drug enforcement.

A recent survey by Emerson College Polling found that 56% of Oregon voters want to completely repeal Measure 110, which legalized the personal possession of illicit substances statewide. Similarly, 60% of Seattle voters support arresting for public use, having experienced the brunt of the historic rise in fatal overdoses thanks to Democrats in the state legislature, while 64% support criminal penalties for drug possession, according to a Seattle Times/Suffolk University poll.

The changes in public sentiment should have been expected. Drug legalization advocates promised programs delivering to addicts the help they so desperately needed, eschewing any attempt to "criminalize addiction." They didn’t follow through.

Multnomah County, where Portland is located, saw fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids like fentanyl jump over 500% between 2018 and 2022. The crisis shows no sign of subsiding, with 911-related overdose calls in the county doubling from May to June 2023, compared to last year. In King County, with Seattle drives the stats, there have been historic fatal overdose highs each year during the legalization experiment, with 2023 (at 915) on pace to far exceed 2020’s record-high 1,000.

But as I detail in my forthcoming book "What’s Killing America," advocates failed to deliver on promises to treat addiction. Failure is by design: The Radical Left never intended to prioritize drug treatment. Instead, they adopt a radical approach to dealing with drug addicts and it’s already spread outside the Pacific Northwest. It’s called "harm reduction."

This approach aims to reduce the health consequences of drug use, be they physical or mental. For example, sharing needles spreads diseases, so public health officials and nonprofit groups hand out clean needles. This helps prevent the spread of HIV or other blood-borne diseases. Instead of allowing someone to shoot up heroin or smoke fentanyl alone, they’re offered a "safe consumption site" to use in front of a medical professional. This allows a nurse to intervene during an overdose.

But as more progressive-minded politicians and activists gained control over local programs, the envelope was pushed. At first, the idea of a heroin injection site was, frankly, insane. The idea that government agencies and nonprofits would set up space for addicts to comfortably shoot up seems almost like a parody. All that these sites are missing is a soothing soundtrack of waterfalls and chirping birds, mood lighting, and a shoulder massage while they inject themselves with a poison that is ruining their lives.

Yet after the model was adopted in Vancouver, British Columbia, left-wing American politicians quickly jumped on the bandwagon, rushing to see which city could establish the nation’s first heroin den.

The New York City Department of Health took harm reduction messaging to the extreme with a series of subway posters meant to empower addicts. "Don’t be ashamed you are using, be empowered that you are using safely," one poster read. Another explores the benefits of testing your drugs before smoking them. "Fentanyl test strips can save your life," the poster announces, instructing addicts to test their drugs and consume in groups, one at a time, to help intervene in case of a drug overdose. Warning people not to use drugs can also save lives, but is apparently too stigmatizing to message to the addict community.

To question harm reduction is sacrilege in liberal cities; if you offer even the slightest criticism, the Radical Left labels you a monster who wants to see addicts die. It’s why progressive activists and politicians respond, perched upon the highest of high horses, by claiming they just want to save lives while you want to stigmatize addicts.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition claims "stigma creates the social conditions that make people who use drugs believe they are not deserving of being treated with dignity and respect, perpetuating feelings of fear and isolation." You are, advocates insist, to cast no judgment on an addict because it gets in the way of treatment by making the addict feel "unwelcome or judged by program staff that offers services." We’re supposed to believe it’s not the consequence-free drug use and open embrace of addiction that’s stopping them from treatment. It’s the stigma.

This contrived argument is meant to shut down the opposition. Progressive activists pursuing harm reduction strategies rely on little opposition. They use arguments guilting the public into submission, insisting progressive neighbors that they should consider their privilege and embrace discomfort to help those in need.

The guilt works in cities with the most left-wing voters, all eager to be in the vanguard of a revolution in tackling societal ills. This tactic allows Radical Left public health officials and politicians to keep veering policy farther to the left.

While voters in Portland and Seattle voice their displeasure with radical drug policy, they shouldn’t expect any changes in the near future. Radical Left activists won’t give up.

While far-left Portland mayor Ted Wheeler called for Measure 110 to be repealed, the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance is warning that the county would lose $58 million in drug treatment funds. Of course, the argument is disingenuous since addicts are hardly being treated and funds are being spent on harm reduction tools, including needles and pipes. Even Wheeler noted in March that "here we are two years later, and we’ve seen the decriminalization of hard drugs, but we’re not seeing the treatment." After delays, the first Measure 110 funded detox facility will open this month, nearly three years after passage.

In Washington, Democrat state lawmakers relented and reclassified drug possession a gross misdemeanor after two years of legalization. But Seattle hasn’t updated its municipal code to codify the change. Under the current policy, drug charges go to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which won’t pursue drug possession cases.

Radicals on the city council rejected a measure that would given those cases to the Seattle City Attorney, a Republican who says she’ll charge when appropriate. But the far-left majority on the council wanted less punitive measures taken, while Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office hasn’t even written a replacement, compromise drug policy that was supposed to get a vote last month.

As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve seen this story unfold before: voters claim they’re upset with progressive city governance, but do little to pressure politicians into actually changing course. Often, they vote into office the same kind of Radical Left politician.

Will drug legalization be the issue that finally pushes voters in the Rose City or Emerald City to act? Only time will tell.

 

原网址：

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/progressives-seattle-portland-fed-up-making-drug-legal