What’s the deal with excessive drug addiction in major North American cities?

[ana]

I've seen videos of some cities in North America showing areas completely overrun by drug addicts; it looks like a zombie apocalypse.

How can the inhabitants and authorities of these cities remain indifferent to so much human degradation? Do so-called normal people find this normal?
There are drug addicts in Europe too, but I've never seen anything like it in my life before...

Is your city also affected by this problem?

[Steely Dan]

This thread desperately needs data.

[sopas ej]

In my rudimentary search of data online, I've only been able to find info on the "most drug-addicted areas/cities" of the US from for-profit sources (for-profit addiction treatment centers).

This is data from 2024, from a study done by American Addiction Centers.













This, from 2026, from MindSpace Recovery Center:


...which says DC has one of the highest drug addiction rates, which is the complete opposite of the supposed 2024 study done by American Addiction Centers. So, in other words, I take this data all with a grain of salt, like the OP should when watching highly curated videos of North American cities with areas displaying the overused Western pop-culture term "zombie apocalypse."

[mhays]

Is this is less about general drug use and more about homeless on the street?

Some cities don't treat (don't have space, don't compel), don't have enough shelter space, don't arrest or convict for behavior (due to philosophy and also not enough police), while also concentrating public services in their downtowns and other urban districts (shelters, clinics, transit, jails).

The Seattle area pretty bad for this, though not at the California or Portland level. However we're doing some things right. Some new mental health facilities are opening (an overlapping issue). A new state rule is that all cities are required to allow shelters and supportive housing anywhere they allow hotels and apartments (or something like that), so the burden is spreading out more.

[biguc]

3 things.

Those videos you've seen show a problem that is real but is often intensely localized. Not all of San Francisco is like the Tenderloin, for example.

So-called normal people in Canada and the US live in suburbia where they can ignore this problem. Lots of them do think it's normal for cities to have serious social problems. And lots of so-called normal people have seen the same videos you've seen and think all of San Francisco is like the Tenderloin, for example.

Finally, Canada and the US are fundamentally liberal. We don't believe in telling people what to do or spending money to help anyone. Lots of people think living in the streets doing drugs is an inviolable right. Lots of people think the state giving people housing and support to stop living in the street doing drugs is a violation of their own rights. These positions are not contradictory, but most people hold one and only one. This ensures pollitical deadlock and that nothing adequate will ever get done.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

This thread desperately needs data.

....sorry, I couldn't resist.

[Steely Dan]

^ LOL, love it!

[craigs]

Originally Posted by ana

I've seen videos of some cities in North America showing areas completely overrun by drug addicts; it looks like a zombie apocalypse.

I've seen videos of some cities in North America showing none of that.

How can the inhabitants and authorities of these cities remain indifferent to so much human degradation? Do so-called normal people find this normal?

I saw videos of North American cities that didn't include human degradation. Do so-called normal Europeans find that abnormal?

There are drug addicts in Europe too, but I've never seen anything like it in my life before...

Is your city also affected by this problem?

There are people in North America who are not addicted to drugs. Is your city also filled with people who are not drug addicts?

[ana]

Originally Posted by biguc

3 things.

Those videos you've seen show a problem that is real but is often intensely localized. Not all of San Francisco is like the Tenderloin, for example.

So-called normal people in Canada and the US live in suburbia where they can ignore this problem. Lots of them do think it's normal for cities to have serious social problems. And lots of so-called normal people have seen the same videos you've seen and think all of San Francisco is like the Tenderloin, for example.

Finally, Canada and the US are fundamentally liberal. We don't believe in telling people what to do or spending money to help anyone. Lots of people think living in the streets doing drugs is an inviolable right. Lots of people think the state giving people housing and support to stop living in the street doing drugs is a violation of their own rights. These positions are not contradictory, but most people hold one and only one. This ensures pollitical deadlock and that nothing adequate will ever get done.

So depressing. So many lives that could be saved and useful to society as a whole are left to rot. And this in supposedly the most "advanced" countries in the world.

[ana]

Originally Posted by mhays

Is this is less about general drug use and more about homeless on the street?

Some cities don't treat (don't have space, don't compel), don't have enough shelter space, don't arrest or convict for behavior (due to philosophy and also not enough police), while also concentrating public services in their downtowns and other urban districts (shelters, clinics, transit, jails).

The Seattle area pretty bad for this, though not at the California or Portland level. However we're doing some things right. Some new mental health facilities are opening (an overlapping issue). A new state rule is that all cities are required to allow shelters and supportive housing anywhere they allow hotels and apartments (or something like that), so the burden is spreading out more.

Good to know, there are still some people with a good heart.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by biguc

Lots of people think the state giving people housing and support to stop living in the street doing drugs is a violation of their own rights. These positions are not contradictory, but most people hold one and only one. This ensures pollitical deadlock and that nothing adequate will ever get done.

A major point was the loss of will to mandate involuntary mental health treatment. And it's one of those things where, yes, it can be horrifying, but it's also needed as some people are a danger to themselves and others. Even in BC there's been a shift back toward acknowledging that some involuntary mental health treatment and institutionalization is necessary. It shouldn't be punitive but it's fundamentally needed.

Similarly, street order has to be policed, and there are good reasons not to allow some antisocial behaviours like injecting needles while sitting on the sidewalk or building a little camp in a shop doorway at night.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by someone123

A major point was the loss of will to mandate involuntary mental health treatment. And it's one of those things where, yes, it can be horrifying, but it's also needed as some people are a danger to themselves and others. Even in BC there's been a shift back toward acknowledging that some involuntary mental health treatment and institutionalization is necessary. It shouldn't be punitive but it's fundamentally needed.

Similarly, street order has to be policed, and there are good reasons not to allow some antisocial behaviours like injecting needles while sitting on the sidewalk or building a little camp in a shop doorway at night.

Absolutely agree, but housing and aftercare go hand-in-hand with involuntary treatment. One cannot detox people for a number of months and then toss them out to fend for themselves, expecting them to suddenly function normally. The addiction cycle will inevitably begin again. A partial solution is as useful as no solution, only more expensive.

[llamaorama]

My concern with involuntary institutionalization is it's unlikely to be humane in the long run since this is a part of the population that the general public doesn't care about.

Also you get on a slippery slope of poor farms and vagrancy laws like in the 19th and early 20th century. If you were unemployed you could get arrested in a lot of US states.

I'd rather deal with homeless drug addicts on the street than deal with the threat that in the future, AI could take my and 90% of everyone else's job and leave me destitute, and as punishment for the crime of being poor I could be sent to some prison camp to do menial labor for the rest of my life.

But whatever, it's already coming. With the Grants Pass Supreme Court decision, cities and states can now jail people for sleeping in public. Louisiana passed a law this year that puts people in prison for an involuntary amount of time as a punishment for homeless loitering type offenses, and while there's technically a way out in the form of a work program, that will probably not work out for a lot of them, and also people with previous convictions for things like drugs aren't eligible so it's effectively a life sentence.

Sure, let's take the poor and needy and lock them in un-airconditioned bunk houses and use them in chicken slaughterhouses for $1/hour loaded into an account that gets garnished for fines they'll never ever be able to pay back.

So many lives that could be saved and useful to society as a whole are left to rot.

Saving people or helping them isn't ever the justification for these things. It's get rid of them because they are nuisances.

[iheartthed]

Imagine teleporting from the 1990s and seeing this lol:

Originally Posted by sopas ej

In my rudimentary search of data online, I've only been able to find info on the "most drug-addicted areas/cities" of the US from for-profit sources (for-profit addiction treatment centers).

This is data from 2024, from a study done by American Addiction Centers.

...

[JManc]

Originally Posted by ana

So depressing. So many lives that could be saved and useful to society as a whole are left to rot. And this in supposedly the most "advanced" countries in the world.

Being 'advanced' has nothing to do with it. The only real alternative to mass amounts of homeless/ mentally ill on the streets is involuntary institutionalization which we did decades ago under pretty horrific conditions which led to their dissolution in the first place. As to how to solve the homeless epidemic and not strip away basic human rights is fine line. As with most things, we went from one extreme to another.

[downtownpdx]

Oregon thankfully ended its brief experiment with decriminalizing hard drugs in 2024. Now Portland seems to have a much more common sense approach - diversion combined with criminal penalties. If you’re arrested for public drug use, dealing etc you can avoid jail time if you get treatment. Not as successful as hoped at first, but they’re tweaking (no pun intended) the rules lately so people have more time to get into recovery, and harsher penalties if they don’t follow through.

[tdawg]

I was just in Amsterdam for a few days and was kind of surprised by the lack of people walking around openly high. I know that drug use is highly regulated there but "my" reality didn't match my expectations. When I think of American cities with open drug problems they typically have to do with fentanyl. I'm thinking of LA's skid row, the Tenderloin in San Francisco, and Kensington in Philadelphia. It is interesting that we don't have any such areas (that I'm aware of) in New York City close to being as depressing/upsetting.

[mhays]

I would much rather institutionalize drug and mental cases when they're creating chronic problems on the street (strewing trash, stealing, blocking sidewalks, shouting at passers-by). Don't use the worst treatments of the 50s and give them decent apartments.

Letting them camp on the street isn't terribly humane. And I want civic order on a normal first world level.

[ilcapo]

Many of them seems to be extroverts. In need of company and wants to be seen. Perhaps a cry for help. Im.sure theres a cultural element in this somehow. Appearantly we have a drug problem in Sweden too but its very rare to see them do drugs so openly. Its mostly behind closed doors

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by mhays

I would much rather institutionalize drug and mental cases when they're creating chronic problems on the street (strewing trash, stealing, blocking sidewalks, shouting at passers-by). Don't use the worst treatments of the 50s and give them decent apartments.

Letting them camp on the street isn't terribly humane. And I want civic order on a normal first world level.

Agreed!!!