Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
I don't think criminalizing it helps.
Maybe we need a new classification...or revive an old one. I think we need to institutionalize people who are severely addicted to hard drugs and force our help upon them after giving them an opportunity or three to claw out themselves.
I don't think a home will help. I believe homelessness comes after drug addiction; not before. Helping with housing once they're clean works for me, though.
I'm fine with a tax increase to cover this. Even, say, a 3% sales tax or something to directly pay for it.
Are we as bad as Vancouver or LA? Probably not yet, but my taste of these ####ers over the past week has been enough to want to hit this problem hard and fast and with a greater concern for society at large than for the individual drug users whose interests we seem to be prioritizing (to no avail) over the interests of the rest of us who are operating within the boundaries of normal and trouble-free behaviour.
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You’re assuming the way out is the reverse of the way in which is not always the case. There are limited examples, but in the countries where housing-first has been applied (including in Canada about a decade ago) there have been positive results.
You also have to ask yourself what you’re trying to solve. Are you trying to solve addiction? Or homelessness? Because they’re different. And they require different solutions. And you can try to solve both, but you just need a bigger, more comprehensive solution.
Beyond imprisoning these people, how are you going to force them to deal with their addiction issues? And let’s say they kick the addiction, then they get housing? When? And what if they do drugs again? You take it away? That’s just not a workable scenario unless you’re going to proceed with criminalization (or whatever you want to rename it).
Instead, giving them a foundation and building on top of it is the way, which is the idea behind housing-first. Give them a home, and then they’re more likely to seek out support for mental health and addiction issues. Unless you think they just do drugs because it’s fun. It also solves you “interacting” with them, considering there’s a lot less reason for them to be on your car hood or hanging around downtown in the cold when they actually have a place to go to. Do you think they’re hanging out at an intersection because it’s a nice place to be?
Either way, 3% tax isn’t going to cut it, so you’re going to have to be ok with a lot more than that.