Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteTiger
And now, after 4.5 decades of that, the government is like "Nope, we've changed our minds. Let's give these addicts their drugs". So there's a part of me that's like "So now we're giving out free drugs? I've been told my entire life drugs are bad, and we're GIVING them out now? WTF?" Most of me realizes that that part of me is more hindbrain, but it's still there.
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It's not "government just suddenly deciding." We have 50 years of evidence that the war on drugs is a massive failure and that treating addiction as a crime and moral failing has led us to where we are now. We also have examples of the prescribed safe supply model being successful at reducing overdoses in other countries.
I agree that major structural investments need to be made alongside this or it's not going to be as successful as it should be, but this is exactly what evidenced-based policy looks like.
My one concern is that, with this being the first program of its kind tried in Canada, that people are going to be looking for reasons for it to fail. There are almost assuredly going to be hiccups along the way. If it's not immediately successful, I hope people have the patience to let the government tweak the program instead of demanding it be scrapped altogether.