I explicitly stated that it was "more than one" and in no way intimated that it was all cops.
One of the simplest things we could do as a country to help mitigate this is to end the War on Drugs. It was never about protecting people, and was always about enabling oppression of "others".
The other simple thing to do is to stop using cops for "welfare checks" and mental health crises -- those situations are uniformly better handled by social workers. This has tragically been put under the category of "defund the police", but the idea itself is sound. The "defund" slogan is so bad it's almost like it was created to sabotage the effort.
As much as I understand ACAB due to their systemic corruption and acting as a gang to provide their friends and family with more “justice” than others, I disagree with ending the war on drugs.
While it would be nice to think we can live in a world where everyone can be healed from mental problems (including drug addiction), I don’t think it’s possible to come back from the hardest of drugs (on a population level). The only thing you are inviting is chaos into your neighborhood.
I understand your concerns about this (living outside Portland OR) but would counter that there's plenty of chaos with the current system.
I lost my brother to heroin decades ago and the laws on the books did nothing to prevent it, and a better system could have helped prevent it.
It would have to be done "holistically" (coordinated with the legal system, policing, health care, etc) but it's technically viable. The only thing stopping us from doing it is, um, us.
Even if it wasn't truly legal, it could be vastly overhauled if it actually was about doing what it pretends to be about: protecting us from the dangers of drugs.
One of the simplest things we could do as a country to help mitigate this is to end the War on Drugs. It was never about protecting people, and was always about enabling oppression of "others".
The other simple thing to do is to stop using cops for "welfare checks" and mental health crises -- those situations are uniformly better handled by social workers. This has tragically been put under the category of "defund the police", but the idea itself is sound. The "defund" slogan is so bad it's almost like it was created to sabotage the effort.