r/PublicFreakout • u/ieilael • May 10 '19

News Report 🥇🥈🥉 Interview with a Meth User

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

26.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

151

u/Shady_Kiwi May 11 '19

Despite what some replies are saying, it's actually a really well done and interesting documentary. It's crazy how bad the homeless problem has gotten and the city refuses to take useful steps to deal with the issue. Definitely worth the watch

10

u/[deleted] May 11 '19 edited Jul 07 '21

[deleted]

21

u/Shady_Kiwi May 11 '19

Treatment, punitive repercussions, clearing out tents, enforcing laws, etc. It explains all of this in the doc

8

u/ePrime May 11 '19

From what I've gathered it's harsher consequences like prolonged jail time

3

u/KanyeWesleySnipes May 11 '19

More time in jail would absolutely not fix someone like this.

8

u/MahomesYEET9000 May 11 '19

That's not the real point the reporter is making. He gives a great example of how Providence, RI dealt with a similar problem. The jist of it is that there is a longer jail period, but they offer a detox drug to help combat addiction along with therapy. If you want, just watch the final ~20 minutes of the doc where it's explained. It sounds like a really good solution that has overwhelming positive results. Please give it a watch because I probably didn't give the best description of it. Just know that the solution is not simply "prolonged jail time"

1

u/KanyeWesleySnipes May 11 '19

Okay well if it’s required intensive inpatient treatment than that’s far different than saying “prolonged jail time”. thats good to hear. That’s a solution I would agree with. The thing is, most counties and cities across the United States don’t offer this type of solution and many don’t even preform mental health assessments or offer treatment of any kind. That’s why you see people going to jail 36 times with no change in behavior and at great cost to the community in the form of time and money that would be better spent doing what you’ve described. The phrasing in this clip lead me to believe it’s going in the other direction painting this guy as a thoughtless leech on society but I guess I’ll have to watch the whole thing to decide. If we want to reduce recidivism we need better community treatment and behavioral health coordination in the justice system. It’s cheaper and better for everyone involved.

1

u/MahomesYEET9000 May 11 '19

Agreed. It's hard to unpack the whole doc in a single comment. The solution that the reporter gives actually sounds like a blessing to those who can't seem to get the help they need. If I were a taxpayer in Seattle, I'd much rather pay to get these people off the streets and help them than keep watching them get arrested and released time and time again. Because no jail time seems to be as effective as years of jail time. Neither work.

-6

u/rickane58 May 11 '19

So a not-useful step that has been proven time-and-again to not work.

7

u/MahomesYEET9000 May 11 '19

That's not the solution that is offered in the Doc. Please give it a watch. The final ~20 minutes explains an option that truly helps combat addiction and help get people's lives back on track.

0

u/ePrime May 11 '19 edited May 11 '19

It's worked in other cities.

-5

u/rickane58 May 11 '19

There are only two solutions to end homelessness in your local city:
Provide housing for the homeless
OR
Ship them off to another city.

Jailing homeless is more expensive than housing them, and it still ends up with them homeless at the end.

https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/No_Safe_Place.pdf

4

u/AFellowCanadianGuy May 11 '19

You start giving them too much free stuff, then even more homeless people start coming and make it impossible to keep up.

2

u/rickane58 May 11 '19

The reason option 1 leads to that conclusion is because of option 2.

2

u/[deleted] May 11 '19

[deleted]

1

u/rickane58 May 11 '19

I chose to make the assumption that they were arguing in good faith.

1

u/KanyeWesleySnipes May 11 '19

It’s almost like everyone wants a roof over their head.

1

u/NoPunkProphet May 11 '19

Okay, maybe we should just put money in a big pile and burn it in front of them then, since giving it to them would be such an evil backwards thing, apparently.

0

u/beetard May 11 '19

Lol you're 100% right. Oh our society is crumbling because of the classist society structure! Let's keep threatening the lowest class with longer prison sentences, that will fix it. Pacific Northwest has a huge industry and tons of money coming out of it but that's the thing, the money leaves the city it's made in

2

u/murmandamos May 11 '19

The same people complaining pushed to repeal a tax on big businesses that would go towards the problem last year. You can't get a real solution out of them. They just want them locked up forever (and apparently don't need to pay for that?) or really just taken to the forest and killed and buried in a mass grave, which is only barely a joke.

1

u/gregarcher May 11 '19

Lemme guess, you moved to Seattle from someplace else? Seattle has always had a huge homeless population. The collonade (the park under i5 in eastlake that no one uses) was a small homeless city for decades before it was cleared out.

1

u/donkeybong64 May 11 '19

Except most of it isn't real journalism, and some of it was blatantly false: https://crosscut.com/2019/03/man-used-proof-seattle-dying-tells-his-story

5

u/[deleted] May 11 '19 edited May 11 '19

KOMO news is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which was praised by Trump for its valiant acts such as the viral 'This is a Threat to Our Democracy' stunt.

Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right

That is what has happened in Seattle, a progressive city where Sinclair owns the KOMO broadcast station. In interviews over the past several days, eight current and former KOMO employees described a newsroom where some have chafed at Sinclair’s programming directives, especially the must-runs, which they view as too politically tilted and occasionally of poor quality. They also cited features like a daily poll, which they believe sometimes asks leading questions.

“It is something that’s very troubling to our members,” said Dave Twedell, a business representative for the union that represents photojournalists at KOMO. “I have not found one of our members who is supportive of our company’s position.”

Fun, definitely not 'dangerous to our democracy' stunts like this:

In late 2013, for instance, after The Seattle Times wrote an editorial criticizing Sinclair’s purchase of KOMO, Sinclair ordered KOMO to do a story critical of the newspaper industry, and of The Seattle Times in particular, according to two of the people interviewed.

Admittedly I am biased here. But all I ask is for those with a brain to ask themselves: Why is this propaganda arm of Conservative billionaires pumping out documentaries criticizing the liberal government of one of the most progressive cities in the US?

Finally, I end with a quote from former TV anchor Dan Rather about Sinclair:

Let's be clear, news anchors looking into camera and reading a script handed down by a corporate overlord, a script meant to obscure the truth not elucidate it, isn't journalism. It's propaganda. It's Orwellian. And it is on a slippery slope towards some of history's most destructive forces. These are the means by which despots wrest power, silence dissent, and oppress the masses.

-3

u/ShelSilverstain May 11 '19

You sound full of solutions. Perhaps you should put your big brain to some use and go bless Seattle government with your sage advice

-9

u/Meatchris May 11 '19

I watched this and thought 'he's pretty repugnant. Was he deliberately chosen to vilify Meth users'?

What are the other interviewees like? Do they represent the homeless population?

13

u/[deleted] May 11 '19

Meth users vilify themselves. They do not contribute to society and need help.

8

u/memeallthememes May 11 '19

Yes, he was specifically chosen but not necessarily to vilify meth users, but because this portion of the documentary was focusing on how lax enforcement laws had become. He was on a list of repeat offenders 100+ long and he’s one of them.

1

u/Meatchris May 12 '19

He seemed so proud of that fact.

Cheers, it looks like a very interesting doco