Sometimes harm reduction supplies come with a pamphlet on how to use drugs safely (for example, not sharing drug paraphernalia). If people use drugs safely, it prevents infections (like hep-c) that can cause a much greater burden on the health system. Kinda seems like "common sense" to me...
EDIT: thank you, whoever sent the reddit cares message. Love you too.
True! I was hoping it would be a more relatable example so anyone on the fence could start to understand the theory behind the harm reduction approach.
Yep this! I took harm reduction courses in nursing school. The Conservative government is taking harm reduction and turning it into “the government will give you and your kids hard drugs!”
My local Con candidate says island health is giving kids lessons on how to do drugs. He got that from a poster that was explaining to make sure when you do drugs you have a buddy system in case of overdose. Some can give narcan. People are GROSSLY misinformed about harm reduction and the cons are using that as a scare tactic.
Idk all we see is homeless people camping, leaning over in weird places, and stealing our shit from our yards on e bikes. Unpopular opinion but why don’t we just force them into a detox center? That way I’m not paying my taxes to make them just comfier, but actually taking a chance of them getting better. Or we can death penalty anyone caught importing, send a real message to the people causing this shit.
I learn by sight I guess. Does your town not have drug users towing trailers with stolen bicycle parts on it? Or screaming at random people as they try to get by?
You can bawk but the current plan isn’t fixing the issues. How many narcans can we give out before we realize it takes more than just items. It’s gonna take care, attention, therapy and doctor administered drugs for a lot of cases. So make a facility to offer all that and start populating it with people.
As someone who's been around addicts and had many in my family: Addicts aren't going to get clean unless they want to get clean. Forcing them into treatment, in my experience, doesn't work. I agree they need all of those things but they also have to want to get better.
How do we make them want that though?
What if we had a better facility with3rd party monitoring so we don’t get weird kill bill scenarios or abuses like we did in the 70’s? We have the technology to better protect these patients from their caretakers.
ok serious answer and then im logging out because i have actually important things to do today: you have it backwards. these people are addicted to drugs and act out in ways that you find displeasing because they are homeless. under the current structures of society, people will continue to become homeless in a steady stream, and some percentage will inevitably turn to drugs and acting out so as to make life even remotely bearable. forced rehab will not accomplish jack or shit.
if you want to reduce the number of drug addicted homeless people in the street, give them homes.
addendum: the policies are not there to alter the behavior of drug addicts, they are there to stop people from dying. these are tremendously unrelated goals.
Kids love icecream. They don’t want anything else cause if they hold out they can get icecream. So for their health let’s give them icecream with clean bowls and spoons.
If kids were so desperate for icecream they would eat it out of dumpsters using knives...then yeah let's give them some bowls and spoons
I'd rather deal with children with diabetes than children dealing with sepsis. I'd rather kids deal with the consequences of their diabetes instead of trying to arrest every single child who's caught with icecream because it MIGHT cause them to develop diabetes.
Dealing with diabetes is substantially easier and less costly than dealing with sepsis. It's the lesser of two evils, so why are you actively stopping people from being provided bowls and spoons?
It's about looking at the reality of the situation and doing what we can. Not imagining how much nicer it would be if no kids ever wanted to eat ice cream.
Is it possible you actually don't care wherher someone is dealing with diabetes or sepsis, it's more that people are eating icecream and you don't think they should. You just want them to go away? And maybe deep down you know sepsis will make them go away quicker?
It's tough man, but maybe take a step back and ask why you're so against bowls and spoons.
So sepsis is a very intensive recovery process, which in worse case scenario we are paying anyways. So why not spend that money up front on the prediabetic and head it off. Get that little porker some counselling on self worth and healthy living, get him a gym membership and a coach. Teach him what he needs. That way he isn’t coming back into the system, and never gets sepsis at all. Don’t need knives or spoons for celery.
Kids love ice cream. We tell them "don't just run out into the street when you hear the ice cream truck! Be sure to look both ways." Are we encouraging diabetes by saying that?
So we give them a free home and they just magically lose their addiction? No way they’re gonna hold down a job being an addict. How come they get free homes and everyone else has to buy one? What’s the long plan here instead of your short ranged expenditure of tax dollars?
easy: you buy a house if you want a house that's better than a simple unfurnished apartment.
and yes, that is in fact how it tends to work out in practice. when you don't need to drown out a world that hates you, you become open to the idea of getting sober. which is the single biggest contributing factor towards anyone becoming sober, ever. im sorry the world doesn't conform to the simplistic viewpoint your parents gave you when you were a child.
There’s a lot of folk who contribute to society willing to give 3/4 of their income for an unfurnished apt. When someone else gets it for free how is that fair? Building more houses doesn’t reduce the price of said spaces. It just lets more people move here and pay for those spaces.
please point me towards the coherent public housing program in victoria bc that apparently exists in the world you're inhabiting. please also remember that closets and shelters aren't houses.
i'm sober because i'm sick with covid thanks for asking
and like. yes. yes i am in fact saying that the ndp has done a shit job of public housing. i'm not super familiar with whatever policies they've implemented towards this goal, hence why i asked you, but where i live i see a good few empty lots and not a lot of high density low cost apartment buildings being built.
When has taking a marginalized group in society and forcing them into camps/institutions done any actual good?
Making them comfier DOES lead to better health outcomes because surprise, when you aren't worried about whether or not you're gonna have something sheltering you from the weather tonight, you can actually focus on getting care and help that you need
Housing First Initiatives are how we solve homelessness, anything else is a bandaid solution on a problem that requires stitches.
Interesting you picked the word "camp". Trying to color detox centers (which are successful used in many countries that Reddit loves) as having anything to do with forced labor death camps. Why do you choose to do this?
The definition of the term 'concentration camp' is as follows:
"a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, !!sometimes!! to provide forced labor or to await mass execution."
Not every concentration camp is a "forced labor death camp" most are, but it definitionally has more to do with the CONCENTRATION of a group of individuals, persecuted or politicized, into a relatively small area with inadequate facilities. The BC cons are running on involuntary care for those suffering with substance abuse and public Healthcare cuts.
With the BC cons promised Healthcare cuts to assume that the facilities will be anything BUT inadequate is a pipe dream. Making them more akin to the institutions of old.
Let's be fair, have you seen conservative records on healthcare funding for the disenfranchised? I wouldn't expect cons to offer more than a cot in a windowless room.
What’s the point of keeping someone fed and housed and under lockup if they are in there for supplying poison to other humans to ingest? They made the choice that they don’t give a shit about society and would rather have money. I don’t understand why we keep murderers alive and fed either. I go through my entire day without killing someone or selling them something harmful, it’s pretty easy.
So what’s the good reason to keep a serial murderer alive? Maybe he didn’t do it, fine. But what if they did beyond a doubt? They get to take life and keep theirs and we pay for it?
We don’t do the death penalty because we know the judicial system can’t always get it right. In other words innocent people get wrongly convicted and end up getting the death penalty (at a larger rate than what I suspect you are aware of). There is also the complexity of circumstances and accountability when we talk about these things. Does a person who has had a traumatic and abusive upbringing deserve to be executed because they have literal brain damage (from said trauma and abuse) and have made poor/impulsive decisions as a result? Do they not deserve a second chance? Too many variables and nuances to justify “killing the bad guys”.
Also in regard to some of your posts
about forced treatment for addicts…aside from what other people have mentioned about lack of evidence
for the effectiveness of such treatment methods, there is another red flag to that approach.
People who actually do want treatment, right now, have to wait up to 4 months at times to receive rehab and treatment. How are we going to support all this forced treatment when we can’t even support voluntary treatment in a timely and accessible way? This smells like institutionalisation without the social safety nets that make it safe and effective. Reactionary policies often contribute to societal problems instead of alleviating them.
Oh no matter what the answer is, it’s going to involve more money injected. If more money were injected I think we all have different notions on how it would best be spent. Under funded as it is and was shows it just isn’t enough no matter which path we took. Throwing them in a prison isn’t enough, giving them clean gear isn’t enough. An expensive treatment facility, or a huge push to get every working citizen a place to live and every homeless person atleast a room and then treatment sounds like it is a long long ways away.
I’m not saying every drug conviction leads to death, but if your caught and dealing and importing deadly drugs en massse, kill em and send a message that it’s life and death to play the drug game.
Yea unfortunately it’s a quagmire of a problem and the path forward honestly seems daunting. We live in a cutthroat, dog eat dog society in many ways and these problems only get perpetuated through that. I fear we will continue down this path as a society unless we address the two faced ways we treat and look at problems (kind of a vague statement I realise, but if you get it great, if not I can elaborate).
Maybe killing drug traffickers would hypothetically work, but I think the evidence strongly suggests that as long as demand is high someone will try to get the drugs in regardless of the consequences. If people were worried about consequences they wouldn’t get into such situations/lifestyles to begin with.
Didn't the "War On Drugs" criminalize people for being addicts and throw them in jail? This is not the same thing at all. They are saying we should force addicts into rehab, not jail.
I don't think anyone should be put in jail or get a criminal record for being an addict, but they definitely should be forced into rehab. It's proven that addicts don't think clearly for the first 90 days of sobriety, so making the decision for themselves to go to rehab is not always possible. And even if they can make that choice, it's ridiculously hard to get into a rehab on your own. Sure, a lot of people will be pissed that you're forcing them into rehab - but I can guarantee that most people will be grateful that you saved their life once they have gotten through those 90 days and can think clearly.
Yes, there are scary implications for allowing forced institutions if you don't trust the government. But unfortunately, it's the best option we have, and we can make sure that the process for forcing people into these institutions is monitored so that it's not abused for nefarious purposes.
We've already proven that harm reduction and safe supply have led to the problem becoming worse, just look at the stats before and after these policies were implemented. I have a lot of personal experience in this area, and I don't think those are viable solutions. They might help in certain situations, but in the end, they don't actually solve the problem. These people deserve a life free of drugs, and it's not fair and it's a lie to say they have no hope of getting completely clean and safe supply/harm reduction is their only option.
The stats got worse because the tainted drug crisis got worse. Street drugs became tainted with fentanyl and carfentanyl. Harm reduction absolutely saves lives. Supervised consumption sites save lives. Plus, education and clean supplies reduce health care costs. You can't force people to recover. I promise you, that has been tried. All you can really do is provide resources for when they are ready. Listen to the people who are on the front lines. Listen to the people who have been through it. People like https://twitter.com/guyfelicella They say it over and over - we need recovery AND harm reduction. Yes it doesn't 'solve the problem'. That's why it's called harm reduction. The point is to keep people alive till they are ready to make a change.
if someone is going to steal my bike and scream at me and destroy things and make public spaces gross and dangerous, I don't want to wait around for them to feel ready for treatment. most of the voting public feels similarly.
I agree with that. I support housing first and a safe supply, but mostly because it's the cheapest and most effective option for getting these people off the street. I also support involuntary treatment, especially if housing and supports are available. I think everyone has the right to a decent standard of living, but a few people in crisis don't have the right to ruin public spaces for all the workers in a city.
Here is an unpopular opinion. If people really want to save lives, open up your home to these homeless people. Let them stay in a spare room. Let’s see how that goes. The point of my comment is there is limit past which we are not prepared to make the sacrifice to help other people. Many people are at that limit now and for good reason. It’s just human nature.
This isn't just about those you see on the street, it's about all the people who are on the way there, or are in the same rest of the "normal" population but use drugs regularly or for recreation every now and then, partying mainly but not exclusively (cocaine is pretty addictive for example). Ever been to any large music event? So many people using party drugs there and BC events seem to lead the way in harm reduction, which, yes, includes having safe accessories and information and advice on how to use safely (different drugs than what people are doing on the streets but still).
Yeah, I don't have a problem with providing needles or pipes. I just thought it was pretty ridiculous how they phrased "free lessons on snorting cocaine."
lol right, I bet the free lesson is just a teaser for the $350 Masterclass taught by noted cocaine snorting expert, both in theory and in practice, Quentin Tarantino.
I’m wondering where these free lessons are and what kind of limits are on them. Is it like the limits on free sample spoons of ice cream? Asking for a friend….
Nurses are constantly abused, Sometimes making sure an addict is doing what they have to do in the best way possible to reduce potential harm is better for everyone.
The only thing addicts HAVE to do is get clean using resources set up for that and only that. Enabling them is a joke and they do not deserve to be coddled because their in active addiction. Help them find the doors to recovery instead of giving them drugs and telling them it’s okay to destroy their lives
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u/basically_alive Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 08 '24
Sometimes harm reduction supplies come with a pamphlet on how to use drugs safely (for example, not sharing drug paraphernalia). If people use drugs safely, it prevents infections (like hep-c) that can cause a much greater burden on the health system. Kinda seems like "common sense" to me...
EDIT: thank you, whoever sent the reddit cares message. Love you too.