05-31-2019, 09:47 AM
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#201
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Scoring Winger
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@ Firebot
I completely agree. I live downtown. Trust me, you’re preaching to the choir in terms of the uptick in discarded needles in the community. We give everyone takeaway coffee cups and those get littered all over the place. Why would anyone think addicts would be more responsible than the average coffee drinker?
That said, there is a lying by omission element that comes with safe injection sites. Of course they result in more needles and a concentration of drug activity. The question is, is it is worth it?
I honestly don’t care much about the humane and moral argument to safe injection sites. Choices have consequences. If you’re stupid enough to share needles, I don’t care about your wellbeing. But I’m a taxpayer in a country with socialized medicine that does. If the safe injection site can be shown to prevent the spread of HIV/Hep C, etc… I think they are worth it. The cost of treating HIV over a lifetime is $500k. The cost of Hepatitis C treatment is $80k. It doesn’t take many prevented cases for those numbers to add up.
There are 1220 people in Alberta who contracted HIV through intravenous drug use. They will cost our healthcare system over $610 million dollars over the course of their lifetime to manage their HIV.
There are 10,200 people in Alberta who contracted Hep C through intravenous drug use. They will cost our healthcare system $816 million to treat and cure.
I’m with you. I’d rather more time be focused on the complex social issues that lead to drug abuse. But until we get drug use to zero, people will share needles, sharing needles leads to higher rates of HIV and Hep C, which will lead to higher healthcare costs for all of us.
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05-31-2019, 10:04 AM
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#202
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Franchise Player
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DiNaMo
As someone living within the 250m buffer zone I can tell you that even those statistics are grossly under-reporting incidences. Unfortunately when this becomes the norm in your community you just learn to live with it.
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Yeah, I can imagine that it gets ridiculously onerous and crushing to keep calling the police over and over again with little change.
It's depressing but not surprising that those crime increase statistics are probably painting a rosier picture than it actually is.
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05-31-2019, 10:07 AM
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#203
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Vancouver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1991 Canadian
@ Firebot
I completely agree. I live downtown. Trust me, you’re preaching to the choir in terms of the uptick in discarded needles in the community. We give everyone takeaway coffee cups and those get littered all over the place. Why would anyone think addicts would be more responsible than the average coffee drinker?
That said, there is a lying by omission element that comes with safe injection sites. Of course they result in more needles and a concentration of drug activity. The question is, is it is worth it?
I honestly don’t care much about the humane and moral argument to safe injection sites. Choices have consequences. If you’re stupid enough to share needles, I don’t care about your wellbeing. But I’m a taxpayer in a country with socialized medicine that does. If the safe injection site can be shown to prevent the spread of HIV/Hep C, etc… I think they are worth it. The cost of treating HIV over a lifetime is $500k. The cost of Hepatitis C treatment is $80k. It doesn’t take many prevented cases for those numbers to add up.
There are 1220 people in Alberta who contracted HIV through intravenous drug use. They will cost our healthcare system over $610 million dollars over the course of their lifetime to manage their HIV.
There are 10,200 people in Alberta who contracted Hep C through intravenous drug use. They will cost our healthcare system $816 million to treat and cure.
I’m with you. I’d rather more time be focused on the complex social issues that lead to drug abuse. But until we get drug use to zero, people will share needles, sharing needles leads to higher rates of HIV and Hep C, which will lead to higher healthcare costs for all of us.
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Everything you said might be true, but you are still discounting the negative impacts to the surrounding communities though. Surely its not fair to ask one segment of the population to just "deal with it" so our collective costs go down. People are watching their small businesses be affected, property values go down, and overall quality of life be degraded as well as potential security and health risks. That's not fair.
Calgary wants a vibrant downtown/beltline yet the impacts of the injection sites prevent the growth of a vibrant community. Who in their right mind wants to be surrounded by this stuff?
__________________
A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
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-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
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05-31-2019, 10:24 AM
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#204
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Powerplay Quarterback
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I dont think he is discounting the negative impacts at all(he said he lives downtown and needles are a reality for him), rather that the benefits outweigh them
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05-31-2019, 10:51 AM
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#205
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Franchise Player
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chemgear
Yeah, I can imagine that it gets ridiculously onerous and crushing to keep calling the police over and over again with little change.
It's depressing but not surprising that those crime increase statistics are probably painting a rosier picture than it actually is.
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If my car gets broken into and there's damage, I don't file a police report. Maybe I should but that's seems more onerous for me and no one seems to give a ####.
__________________
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05-31-2019, 01:37 PM
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#206
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Victoria
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stampsx2
So what’s the solution? Should we get rid of self injection sites?
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There are a number of solutions that have proven to be effective in other countries that won't get implemented in Canada for political reasons, the first two being the complete decriminalization of all drugs (e.g. Portugal) and giving addicts access to free, clean drugs (Denmark).
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05-31-2019, 02:46 PM
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#207
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Powerplay Quarterback
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Calgary
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Lets just give the users of the safe injection site free drugs and they have to stay there for a certain amount of time after shooting up.
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05-31-2019, 03:37 PM
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#208
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Crash and Bang Winger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karl262
Lets just give the users of the safe injection site free drugs and they have to stay there for a certain amount of time after shooting up.
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I like the idea and that's probably what would work best however something about unlawful confinement or kidnapping would probably come into play preventing them from doing this.
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06-08-2019, 01:56 AM
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#209
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tromboner
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: where the lattes are
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Sounds like they're putting one in the Drumheller prison, because keeping drugs and shared needles out of a medium-security prison is apparently not an option.
https://calgarysun.com/news/canada/f...njection-site/
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06-08-2019, 09:29 AM
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#210
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Franchise Player
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
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That seems like a good idea - the rates of HIV/Hep C in prisons are astronomical and there are obviously drugs that get into the system. Look at the people coming out - they are not clean or rehabilitated.
Look at the economics behind it - would you rather pay for needles and staff or a lifetime of medications and healthcare bills? The way our system is currently set up those are the two options that exist. As someone in the healthcare system, that is the honest truth. I don't really care overly about every single person... but unless we change the Canada Health Act, we should do everything in our power to minimize the economic/social cost of drug addiction.
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06-08-2019, 10:28 AM
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#211
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Not the 1 millionth post winnar
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard
That seems like a good idea - the rates of HIV/Hep C in prisons are astronomical and there are obviously drugs that get into the system. Look at the people coming out - they are not clean or rehabilitated.
Look at the economics behind it - would you rather pay for needles and staff or a lifetime of medications and healthcare bills? The way our system is currently set up those are the two options that exist. As someone in the healthcare system, that is the honest truth. I don't really care overly about every single person... but unless we change the Canada Health Act, we should do everything in our power to minimize the economic/social cost of drug addiction.
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Ultimately it gets taken care of organically.
Homeless shelters and needle exchanges move into an area. This attracts the homeless and drug users. The area is littered with needles, trash, and human waste. Businesses lose clients and eventually close. Families and anyone with means moves out. Once the area is fully ghettoized, it becomes “out of sight, out of mind” for the political decision makers, and your downtrodden are effectively forgotten.
Canada doesn’t provide the social assistance programs like other European countries that have needle exchanges, so the main issue doesn’t get fixed. Only the symptoms get band aid solutions.
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06-08-2019, 01:22 PM
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#212
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Crash and Bang Winger
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Nvm
Last edited by Deviaant; 06-08-2019 at 01:33 PM.
Reason: Nvm
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06-08-2019, 11:54 PM
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#213
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Franchise Player
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Interesting episode of CBC 'Ideas' recently on drug use for responsible adults (available as podcast), and our societal approach. I'm skeptical of a lot of it, and it only touches on broad policy ideas and not realistic solutions, but it is a little bit thought provoking.
As a non-user I struggle to assess the claimed benefits, but I also struggle with the seemingly arbitrary lines we draw in regulating various different substances.
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07-12-2019, 11:52 AM
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#215
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First Line Centre
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Ontario
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So, St. Catharines in Ontario has about 130,000+ residents.
They have a needle exchange program and have about 4000 people using it. I don't know know the stats for whether that's per week or month or what, but they claim to receive 80 percent of the needles back.
On 4000 clients, that's still 800 needles per cycle that are not being returned. There's a resident who's been cleaning up the downtown of needles and it's stated that he picked up 800 in one week.
Completely insane.
https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/...opioid-crisis/
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07-12-2019, 02:13 PM
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#216
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Crash and Bang Winger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ped
So, St. Catharines in Ontario has about 130,000+ residents.
They have a needle exchange program and have about 4000 people using it. I don't know know the stats for whether that's per week or month or what, but they claim to receive 80 percent of the needles back.
On 4000 clients, that's still 800 needles per cycle that are not being returned. There's a resident who's been cleaning up the downtown of needles and it's stated that he picked up 800 in one week.
Completely insane.
https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/...opioid-crisis/
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Yeah imagine that heavy drug users not having 100% buy in to a needle exchange. Truly shocking stuff right here.
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07-16-2019, 06:53 PM
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#217
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Celebrated Square Root Day
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lol
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08-11-2019, 01:45 PM
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#218
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Franchise Player
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https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/...r-to-addiction
Sounds like lots of backlash to this piece from medical professionals and other experts, though it seems somewhat targeted at the headline/semantics (no one ever said safe-injection sites were the 'answer').
I am curious about the idea of treatment jails. My first instinct is that success is unlikely without genuine buy-in from the individual, and that the costs/logistics will be astronomical compared to the success rate (really curious about context for the RI 93% thing...guessing it's about as valid as claiming 7% of Canadian bankruptcies come from medical bills vs. 4% in the US...)
I'm pretty sure the answer is that there is no answer. Our healthcare system is very good at keeping people alive, but we are nowhere near achieving proactivity or facilitating optimal wellness for regular people, let alone addicts...
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08-11-2019, 07:39 PM
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#220
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Franchise Player
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Colour me surprised.
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