As you may know, Seattle has a REALLY big problem on our streets with heavy drugs like fentanyl and meth. Really big. Like we have people in the street -- whom I affectionately call the Zombies Crackheads -- who are wasted out of their minds. Literally, out of their minds. They have no minds. They are catatonic or passed out but in a bizarre barely standing pose. These people are not drunk on Boone's Farm or stoned on weed. These people are not jacked on cocaine. These people are almost anesthetized. These people are drugging themselves to death.
So how did we get here, with this drug addiction ruining the lives of the addicted and making live unpleasant for those nearby?
Legal weed.
Follow the logic here.
The idea behind legal weed was to decriminalize it, which isn't a bad thing. The goal was to keep people out of jail for something that was not causing a great deal of harm.
When marijuana became legal, it became legal to sell it. So who started selling legal weed? Did the corner drug dealer open a store on the corner?
Nope.
MBA-venture capital types saw loads of money in making fancy little shops with cute names and lots of products. Average drug dealers probably didn't have the time or skills to make fancy edibles consumed by PTA moms before pick-up.
So what happened to those pot dealers? The guys who sold weed as a quick and easy way to make a few bucks? Did they get other jobs? Did they get job training to become Tech or Finance Bros or anything else?
No.
They kept dealing and started selling harder stuff to their existing client base because there was much, much less of a market for weed on the street.
I am guessing here, but not entirely sure, that the client base of a modern pot shop is not the Skid Row type of clientele. My guess that the people to go to pot shops have credit cards and Venmo accounts and day jobs with health insurance.
So the Skid Row guy who was ten years ago sitting at the U District post office stinking of weed, what happened to him?
His pot dealer didn't stop dealing. His dealer got a new drug, and these new drugs are very, very bad shit.
So what should we do next? Legalize fentanyl, which is like 50 times worse that heroin and 100 times worse than morphine? Hell no.
We need to stop making fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Medical establishments still need anesthesia and pain meds, put do we need them so potent and deadly?
No.
Too many people are dying. They are dying on the streets, in plain view, making out cities scary and unpleasant for those not addicted.
So the people living in tents all over town are there indirectly due to legal marijuana? Yes.
Sure, some them grew their addictions during the pandemic, and with most of the downtown shut down due to remote working, they filled the vacuum. Legalizing weed didn't get rid of drug dealers. Dealers gotta deal.
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