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Old 05-31-2019, 09:47 AM   #201
1991 Canadian
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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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Old 05-31-2019, 10:04 AM   #202
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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.
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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Old 05-31-2019, 10:07 AM   #203
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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.
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?
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Old 05-31-2019, 10:24 AM   #204
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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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Old 05-31-2019, 10:51 AM   #205
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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.
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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Old 05-31-2019, 01:37 PM   #206
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So what’s the solution? Should we get rid of self injection sites?
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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Old 05-31-2019, 02:46 PM   #207
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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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Old 05-31-2019, 03:37 PM   #208
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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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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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Old 06-08-2019, 01:56 AM   #209
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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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Old 06-08-2019, 09:29 AM   #210
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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/
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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Old 06-08-2019, 10:28 AM   #211
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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.
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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Old 06-08-2019, 01:22 PM   #212
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Nvm

Last edited by Deviaant; 06-08-2019 at 01:33 PM. Reason: Nvm
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Old 06-08-2019, 11:54 PM   #213
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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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Old 06-15-2019, 03:11 PM   #214
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/com...n_about_to_go/

What looks to be a man with a gun about to go into the Sheldon Schumer. Another day living beside the safe injection site!



Stabilized video:

https://peervideo.net/videos/watch/b...4-a8e4c75cf0fb
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Old 07-12-2019, 11:52 AM   #215
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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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Old 07-12-2019, 02:13 PM   #216
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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/
Yeah imagine that heavy drug users not having 100% buy in to a needle exchange. Truly shocking stuff right here.
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Old 07-16-2019, 06:53 PM   #217
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lol
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Old 08-11-2019, 01:45 PM   #218
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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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Old 08-11-2019, 04:45 PM   #219
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Calgary Police update on the crime around the injection site with increased police presence.

https://calgarysun.com/news/local-ne...a-9803166c6c86

Despite an increased police presence surrounding Calgary’s only supervised drug consumption site, crime and disorder in the immediate area appear to still be on the rise this year, newly released statistics show.

There were 883 calls to police from the public within the 250-metre zone near the Safeworks consumption site, located inside the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, from April to June, according to a report released Friday by Calgary police.

That figure is 40 per cent higher than the three-year average for the quarter.

But Beltline Neighbourhoods Association president Peter Oliver said the report also highlights increased crime as an issue plaguing the city centre in general. Vehicle crime was up 85 per cent over the three-year average during the second quarter of 2019 while break and enters were up 52 per cent in the inner city.

Neufeld said the report shows a correlation between usage of services at the Chumir centre and calls to police. For every two unique safe consumption site users, there has been an increase of one call to police.
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Old 08-11-2019, 07:39 PM   #220
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Colour me surprised.
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