"Safe" Injection and "Reduced" Harm good for society? Don't think so

[ArmyRick]

So I am not sure if this is covered, if it is, feel free to merge.

This is another example of "feel good, achieve nothing" policies of the left.

and yes, its Rebel News (cue the cry baby noise) but everything in this is fact (or prove otherwise?)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

It's not doing much here despite the politicians trying to say it is. It does not help that China is pumping Fentanyl into North America in an attempt to rot the west out from the inside. Listening to the teenagers around my daughters, I get a sense there is a growing awareness of just how dangerous drugs are and it does not matter how careful you are, your one hit away from dead, always. With pot and booze legal, I suspect more kids are going to stick to them. I also notice the media is changing it's language on illegal drugs. Illegal is now "Unregulated" and drugs laced with Fentanyl are termed "Toxic" as opposed to the apparently harmless everyday drug supply.

 

[daftandbarmy]

It's not doing much here despite the politicians trying to say it is. It does not help that China is pumping Fentanyl into North America in an attempt to rot the west out from the inside. Listening to the teenagers around my daughters, I get a sense there is a growing awareness of just how dangerous drugs are and it does not matter how careful you are, your one hit away from dead, always. With pot and booze legal, I suspect more kids are going to stick to them. I also notice the media is changing it's language on illegal drugs. Illegal is now "Unregulated" and drugs laced with Fentanyl are termed "Toxic" as opposed to the apparently harmless everyday drug supply.

I have no charts and graphs to back me up but the main benefit, AFAIK, is that the safe injection sites result in a lower death rate as there are people present who can help in case of an overdose.

I believe that's one reason why the death rate for 'home alone users' might be higher than folks on the street.

As a method of resolving the fentanyl/addiction/crime spree/general descent into the 12th level of Hell crisis?

Not effective at all IMHO

 

[OldSolduer]

It's not doing much here despite the politicians trying to say it is. It does not help that China is pumping Fentanyl into North America in an attempt to rot the west out from the inside.

IMO the Chinese who are shipping Fentanyl in is nothing less than an undeclared war on North America.

AND the Chinese have useful fools preparing the way in.

 

[Halifax Tar]

IMO the Chinese who are shipping Fentanyl in is nothing less than an undeclared war on North America.

AND the Chinese have useful fools preparing the way in.

You're right.

I have no charts and graphs to back me up but the main benefit, AFAIK, is that the safe injection sites result in a lower death rate as there are people present who can help in case of an overdose.

I believe that's one reason why the death rate for 'home alone users' might be higher than folks on the street.

As a method of resolving the fentanyl/addiction/crime spree/general descent into the 12th level of Hell crisis?

Not effective at all IMHO

And I hate to be all Darwinian but maybe we should let nature take its course.

 

[Eaglelord17]

IMO the Chinese who are shipping Fentanyl in is nothing less than an undeclared war on North America.

AND the Chinese have useful fools preparing the way in.

To be fair it was the west who taught them that via the opium wars. The Chinese have long memories

 

[Halifax Tar]

To be fair it was the west who taught them that via the opium wars. The Chinese have long memories

And ?

They gave taught the world gun powder...

 

[mariomike]

I have no charts and graphs to back me up but the main benefit, AFAIK, is that the safe injection sites result in a lower death rate as there are people present who can help in case of an overdose.

Politics aside, perhaps they should call them "safer" injection sites.

Injection site client's fatal OD raises concerns of new naloxone-resistant drugs

Despite a rescue attempt with naloxone and intervention by paramedics, a drug user who overdosed at a supervised injection site on Murray Street last week later die…

ottawacitizen.com

 

[Eaglelord17]

And ?

They gave taught the world gun powder...

We also taught them how to use that effectively…

 

[Brad Sallows]

IMO the Chinese who are shipping Fentanyl in is nothing less than an undeclared war on North America.

Revenge for the British and opium.

"Toxic" is a useless adjective for drugs. Pretty much anything in too much quantity is toxic.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Politics aside, perhaps they should call them "safer" injection sites.

Injection site client's fatal OD raises concerns of new naloxone-resistant drugs

Despite a rescue attempt with naloxone and intervention by paramedics, a drug user who overdosed at a supervised injection site on Murray Street last week later die…

ottawacitizen.com

Recently talking to an ex-addict that now works with people at risk and he utterly despises the injection sites.

 

[brihard]

And I hate to be all Darwinian but maybe we should let nature take its course.

You haven’t lost a family member to overdose, have you?

 

[Halifax Tar]

You haven’t lost a family member to overdose, have you?

Not on my side, our affliction is corn liquor. On wife's side, yes. But that does provide some emotional insulation. Your point stands.

I know it's callus and cold. I also know when I walk through my neighborhood and I cant swing a stick without hitting a junkie or a crack head.

I feel for them and what got them to that point in life. But is it the right spot to spend people's tax dollars ?

 

[KevinB]

Revenge for the British and opium.

Well the British were not really importing it. They were just not stopping ethnic Chinese from using it, while they criminalized the use by Europeans.

"Toxic" is a useless adjective for drugs. Pretty much anything in too much quantity is toxic.

Agreed. But IMHO it’s an attempt to desensitize the population to the true dangers of drugs.

 

[Brad Sallows]

But is it the right spot to spend people's tax dollars ?

The hard centre of all issues. Existing commitments already exceed revenues, and that is before adding more "wants" to the pile. Watching the argument over combing through a landfill for human remains, I concluded that none of the "concerns" matter - the simple answer is that it's too much money that ought be spent to alleviate more pressing problems facing people in need.

 

[mariomike]

Recently talking to an ex-addict that now works with people at risk and he utterly despises the injection sites.

I never saw one, as they were not opened until almost a decade after I retired.

Toronto Public Health opened the city’s first permanent supervised consumption service on November 8, 2017.

Can't be any worse than the unofficial unsupervised shooting galleries they used to send us into.

 

[OldSolduer]

Not on my side, our affliction is corn liquor. On wife's side, yes. But that does provide some emotional insulation. Your point stands.

I know it's callus and cold. I also know when I walk through my neighborhood and I cant swing a stick without hitting a junkie or a crack head.

I feel for them and what got them to that point in life. But is it the right spot to spend people's tax dollars ?

You’ve hit the nail on the head WRT what got them to being addicted. That is a question I’m sure every sane person has pondered.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I know in a perfect world, it could be possible to walk and chew gum at the same time, but we're not in a perfect world.

There's a constituency out there pushing for safe injection as part of a spectrum of ways to help people get off drugs and living productive lives. People who OD & die have zero chance to rehabilitate.

Problems include:

• each individual has to be ready to quit AND get into a better lifestyle (if people find it hard to quit smoking, how hard must it be to quit drugs?);
• no one road out of addiction will help everyone, or even a majority (thus creating mini-empires, like many other government-funded solutions to things); and
• services to help people climb out of addiction and into productivity have to be consistently available with enough space to handle people, often more than once (see 2 re: one reason why no single program has enough room to help enough people at any given time).

There's also a constituency saying "let 'em die, they made their choice" or "lock 'em all up." Well, at one level, reducing the client numbers does lessen the first-order problem, but as others have pointed out, who wants to tell a family "fuck 'em, they chose" when they may have been looking for help for some time and met with no room at the inn. Also, anybody know which would be more expensive: treatment or jail? In jail, inmates are supposed to receive programming, but I can guess how short of services institutions in general must be vs. need.

Gotta keep the general public safe, too, but that's another one where LOTS of stuff needs to be done at all levels (law enforcement, the courts, parole systems, etc.) to deal firmly & consistently with those who peddle the stuff. At the root, though, is how do you deal with the demand?

Like people who are radicalized, almost all addicts are trying to deal with what they see as a shitty situation. In some cases, it may be from bad choices, and in others, there may be problems with how the systems they deal with deal with them. Like with radicalization, how do you keep people from feeling that's the ONLY alternative? That's the source, and the hardest factor to pin one single solution to.

Bottom line: I feel for people people feeling unsafe due to the drug trade and behaviour of some addicts, I feel for addicts trying to dig themselves out but can't, but the solutions aren't simple because there's a lot of ground to cover.

 

[daftandbarmy]

FYI….

161 dead in May, a new record, trending upwards:

BC Gov News

The BC Coroners Service has published updated reports on illicit drug toxicity deaths and fentanyl-detected drug deaths to the end of May 2020.

news.gov.bc.ca

 

[Furniture]

I know in a perfect world, it could be possible to walk and chew gum at the same time, but we're not in a perfect world.

There's a constituency out there pushing for safe injection as part of a spectrum of ways to help people get off drugs and living productive lives. People who OD & die have zero chance to rehabilitate.

Problems include:

• each individual has to be ready to quit AND get into a better lifestyle (if people find it hard to quit smoking, how hard must it be to quit drugs?);
• no one road out of addiction will help everyone, or even a majority (thus creating mini-empires, like many other government-funded solutions to things); and
• services to help people climb out of addiction and into productivity have to be consistently available with enough space to handle people, often more than once (see 2 re: one reason why no single program has enough room to help enough people at any given time).

There's also a constituency saying "let 'em die, they made their choice" or "lock 'em all up." Well, at one level, reducing the client numbers does lessen the first-order problem, but as others have pointed out, who wants to tell a family "fuck 'em, they chose" when they may have been looking for help for some time and met with no room at the inn. Also, anybody know which would be more expensive: treatment or jail? In jail, inmates are supposed to receive programming, but I can guess how short of services institutions in general must be vs. need.

Gotta keep the general public safe, too, but that's another one where LOTS of stuff needs to be done at all levels (law enforcement, the courts, parole systems, etc.) to deal firmly & consistently with those who peddle the stuff. At the root, though, is how do you deal with the demand?

Like people who are radicalized, almost all addicts are trying to deal with what they see as a shitty situation. In some cases, it may be from bad choices, and in others, there may be problems with how the systems they deal with deal with them. Like with radicalization, how do you keep people from feeling that's the ONLY alternative? That's the source, and the hardest factor to pin one single solution to.

Bottom line: I feel for people people feeling unsafe due to the drug trade and behaviour of some addicts, I feel for addicts trying to dig themselves out but can't, but the solutions aren't simple because there's a lot of ground to cover.

I suspect people would be less annoyed with safe injection sites if the government appeared to be doing anything else.

The real world concequences of the ballooning addictions crisis is increased crime, and violent crime impacting "normal" people. If the government doesn't figure that part out, the "they made their choice" crowd will win rather than the "but for the grace of God" crowd.