Even in that case, it’s a microcosm within the greater paradigm that we’ve lived in for the past 50 years. That is actually the expected result in this case. One super liberal city attracting drug addicts because it is a haven for it skews the entire situation in a number of dysfunctional ways. I.e. public funding which attracts drug addicts and homeless people to the location. Additionally, the fact that it was acceptable for these people to do them out in public leads to things that actually are crimes like harassment, violence, disturbing the peace, destruction of private property, etc., bc most of them are mentally ill. On top of all that, they are still getting fentanyl laced drugs on the black market. Fentanyl is only a problem because of the fact that drugs are illegal. Also, all drugs can’t be put in one basket, most drug users are not mentally ill and homeless on the street. They are just average people.
Discussion
In 1995, at the very same time the DEA was ramping up raids on people’s poppy gardens, OxyContin was being approved by the FDA.
Well it's the one example I know of and I experienced it. Any city that allows legal drug use is going to attract addicts. What needs to happen is there also has to be help for them. They have to voluntarily accept help or it is made mandatory otherwise society just sinks. You are not going to have just "average people" taking drugs, you will have hardcore users, mentally ill & homeless too, that's inevitable. It's a nice idea to let people do drugs if they want but there's no reason the rest of the population should pay a price for it. Rehab needs to be a part of the agreement.
Fortunately the rest of the country saw what happened here in Portland so no other city is going to allow drug use without some sort of enforced rehab rules. In fact Portland really put an end to any idea of legal drug use in the US because it made such a collassal fuck up out of it by showing what a nightmare it can become.
I don’t deny any of the problems you’re describing in Portland. Mainly, the original post is calling out libertarians and free markets. Objectively, there is just no possible way to look at the drug problem and say that it has anything to do with a free market. I mean, Trump just blew up some Venezuelan drug boats the other day. There’s nothing free market about it.