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Old 10-21-2024, 10:52 AM   #1946
Blaster86
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: North Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
This notion that most people living in, commuting to, or running businesses in urban areas were just going to become benignly tolerant of open drug use and its associated disorder is beyond naive. The people you call NIMBYs are mostly just regular working people - usually women - who don’t feel safe in public spaces that feel that lawless and scummy.

There's a middle ground between benign tolerance and and malicious intolerance that many people enjoy. Many of the people who pushed back against this were not the people who lived and worked directly in these areas. It was people in surrounding, more affluent areas like Chip Wilson. I fully understand not feeling safe when you see and hear some of the horror stories going on. I fully understand it, even though I know that most metrics show things getting better, not worse. It's why this was such an easy political wedge issue. "Feels" over "Reals" are an understandable thing.


But in the end with what we know about how addiction works and what is required to fix it, this was a step that was needed and will likely be needed again if we are ever going to make head-ways against epidemic. Though now it is when the time is right politically as opposed to when it is necessary to do something (we're there now).



Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
There’s nowhere in the world where people tolerate that kind of behaviour in their public spaces. Which is why the cities that experimented with decriminalizing open use - among the most liberal cities in the world - are all reversing course.

Who is reversing course? BC, Oregon and Ecuador? I can't see anything about anywhere else. And two of those are reversing course on something that had barely just started so we'll never know if it would have worked as intended in the long term.


Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
If you support urban densification and public transit, while simultaneously tolerating open drug use, you’re completely out to lunch. Those two policies are mutually exclusive.

Yeah, we gotta hide and stigmatize drug addiction! If we don't see it we can pretend it's not there! Die in your home/alley/dark corner alone like a good unmentionable. This is the BCCs plan of attack to get rid of the drug problem. Like I said, just shove it all back into the closet, clean up anything that leaks out under the door and everything will be better! Trust them!

They're not mutually exclusive. And while I don't think every street corner is a great place to do your drugs, I don't think every street corner is a great place to smoke or vape. They're publicly intrusive and smell bad. I think all these things should have designated areas.
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