But you can't force confinement of a person and that's what intensive treatment would look like.
Who cares is what I would argue on that front and let's save their life and get them back to where they and their families want.
The goal here should be 100% rehabilitation of a person, get their life in order and have them flurish post recovery.
The people's who's mental health has deteriorated as a result of these drugs generally aren't in a position to make the decision that is best for them.
I know it's not a popular opinion but one of the reasons why we have this level of drug abuse and the constant cycle of addition is a lack of real guts to solve the problem. Like I said in my previous post, the level of abuse is a result of some of our own policies and views on things. This doesn't occur to the same degree in other countries for a variety of factors.
We just can't have a small group of individuals running the show, costing the system literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year and the end result is another tragic death. This is on top of the utter level of destruction in terms of their families, victims families, theft, crime, abuse and a whole host more items.
The better overall plan is to screw what they "feel and think", get them into a secured treatment facility. House them, feed them, income support and assist them for the recovery. We can then give them the address to send the thank you card in the mail.
Better than as my ICU Dr friend says "We have these young nurses and Dr's who spend an hour trying to get an IV under intense pressure to save their life, than have the patient come back dead before were even done our shift"
What really is the point here?
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This doesn't occur to the same degree in other countries for a variety of factors.
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The better overall plan is to screw what they "feel and think", get them into a secured treatment facility. House them, feed them, income support and assist them for the recovery. We can then give them the address to send the thank you card in the mail.
Has this been tried elsewhere? How did it work?
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This entire report is worth a watch, but jump to 44:00 for your particular question. Rhode Island did just that, and it seems to be working far better than safe injection sites
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Apologies if I missed it, but I always see claims of sheer overdoses reversal numbers (that now include oxygen apparently).
But I never seem to see statistics regarding the number of unique people actually helped. Like for 3000 "overdose reversals" claimed in a year, is it just 15 unique people overdosing over and over again 200 times each? And if we don't have that statistic, why not?
Apologies if I missed it, but I always see claims of sheer overdoses reversal numbers (that now include oxygen apparently).
But I never seem to see statistics regarding the number of unique people actually helped. Like for 3000 "overdose reversals" claimed in a year, is it just 15 unique people overdosing over and over again 200 times each? And if we don't have that statistic, why not?
anecdotally one of my old foster kids (in his 30's now) told me he has overdosed 38 times in the last three or four years, those were as he put it, 'wake up looking at the inside of an ambulance overdoses', there were countless other minor OD's where someone gave him a shot of Narcan and he just sloughed it off.
His mum died of an OD three years ago, his dad was murdered by his uncle in a drunken drug fueled fight when he was 1 or 2 years old, he has had more close friends die in his teenage years than most Vietnam vets could claim.
The problem is his life has been, and is, so god damn awful and full of awful memories that he doesn't really care if he dies, that it would honestly be a relief for him, that the only thing that makes his life worth living is the temporary relief of getting high, it takes several years to get clean and put a better more bearable life together and that gap in between is too painful to contemplate.
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It's a slippery slope. I'd argue cigarettes are a much larger drain on our system than hard drugs are. So do you confine smokers as well? Who makes those decisions?
And I still argue that we need to treat the reason a person turned to hard drugs and not only the drug addiction.
...
And I still argue that we need to treat the reason a person turned to hard drugs and not only the drug addiction.
People say this a lot implying that the real reasons are rooted in social injustice, poverty, homelessness etc. and some of those factors contribute, for sure. But many of them have nothing to do with the above and they are just personal choices. Watch the new documentary by Cameron Crowe about David Crosby. He talks about it a lot. He had it all - money, sex, fame, comfort, friendship, yet, he lost it all to hard drugs. His reasons where - "it helps you forget real life for a moment". A guy who had a great life by most standards, wanted to forget it. That is a very powerful personal reason. How do you treat that? The reason his wife at the time turned to hard drugs and got addicted "she wanted to show me that a person can beat it". You can't treat personal reasons pushing people to get away from reality. This is utopian hope.
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I usually avoid political topics but perhaps I have a unique perspective on this particular situation, especially in regards to the safe consumption site (SCS) in Lethbridge.
I have been working as an overnight security guard in Lethbridge for some time now, the place I am stationed, a 24 hour business is within walking distance of the SCS and homeless shelter. The reason they have security is because of addicts coming in and trying to get high in the washrooms, stairwells and anywhere else they can find.
My station there began prior to the SCS opening and prior to it opening I would kick out addicts 3-4 times a night on average, since it opened and went 24 hours it is down to 3-4 per week on average. These addicts can become extremely agitated if you confront them and try to get them to leave the property before they can get their fix. I couldn't tell you the number of times that I have had my life threatened by an addict for simply asking them to leave. I have been assaulted and had weapons pulled on me, I am currently on long term disability as a result of an addict stabbing me for asking him to leave.
I have also witnessed multiple deaths and revivals from overdoses, since the opening of the SCS, I have only witnessed one overdose death, compared to three in the year prior.
Frankly, I don't give a #### what happens to these addicts, if they wanted to throw them on a boat and sink it, I'd be fine with that. That said, the SCS being open makes it safer for people working within walking distance. If the site in Lethbridge were to be closed, it would result in 300+ people a day seeking out new places to get high, which means they are going into businesses to try and get high. Which will absolutely result in the death (probably several per year) of a worker in one of those businesses eventually for doing no more than asking someone to leave.
Another thing to consider is emergency services. Even if the SCS is not saving the lives of addicts, they are saving the lives of the rest of us. SCS have people on staff to deal with overdoses. If they do not exist, the addicts will be more spread out and paramedics and police will become more spread out to deal with overdoses and calls to police about addicts that won't leave certain places. This will result in longer wait times for medics and police for the rest of us when we have an emergency.
Last edited by Crown Royal; 03-06-2020 at 11:43 AM.
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People say this a lot implying that the real reasons are rooted in social injustice, poverty, homelessness etc. and some of those factors contribute, for sure. But many of them have nothing to do with the above and they are just personal choices. Watch the new documentary by Cameron Crowe about David Crosby. He talks about it a lot. He had it all - money, sex, fame, comfort, friendship, yet, he lost it all to hard drugs. His reasons where - "it helps you forget real life for a moment". A guy who had a great life by most standards, wanted to forget it. That is a very powerful personal reason. How do you treat that? The reason his wife at the time turned to hard drugs and got addicted "she wanted to show me that a person can beat it". You can't treat personal reasons pushing people to get away from reality. This is utopian hope.
I'm referring to mental health. Go down to a shelter and the vast majority of clients have some sort of mental disorder. Fix that, and by proxy you see the habitual homeless start to find housing, you see drug use decline.
Heck our economy sucks. You think working folks cut down on purchasing alcohol or cannabis? They probably buy it more. Why do they buy booze and weed? Well I'd say for some sort of relief from the worry in your head. Homeless folks can't afford a $50 case of beer but they can turn to a $5 crack rock.
It's a slippery slope. I'd argue cigarettes are a much larger drain on our system than hard drugs are. So do you confine smokers as well? Who makes those decisions?
And I still argue that we need to treat the reason a person turned to hard drugs and not only the drug addiction.
To investigate the empirical basis for this view, we estimated publicly financed health care expenditure attributable to smoking for the Canadian province of Ontario and compared it to tobacco taxes paid by Ontario smokers. Both initial estimates and the results of sensitivity analyses performed on key assumptions and parameters of the estimation methodology rejected the hypothesized existence of a financial externality arising from smokers' health care utilization.
Smokers cover their own costs on the tax/pack easily IMO.
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I think Safe Injection Sites have their warts, as many programs like this do, but I also think we have to be careful not to let 'The Good' become a casualty of the 'less than perfect.'
They are not solving the problem but they are contributing to it not being exacerbated while we learn more to come up with a real, practical solution.
It wasnt long ago when I'd likely have agreed with the concept of: 'Lock 'em up, Dry 'em out and let 'em go!'
That will create more problems of its own and likely not solve the the real underlying issues.
And I think we have to acknowledge that we just cant solve the real underlying issues. As long as people and drugs exist this will continue. Humans have been using drugs of various forms and varieties since the Dawn of Time.
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I think Safe Injection Sites have their warts, as many programs like this do, but I also think we have to be careful not to let 'The Good' become a casualty of the 'less than perfect.'
They are not solving the problem but they are contributing to it not being exacerbated while we learn more to come up with a real, practical solution.
It wasn't long ago when I'd likely have agreed with the concept of: 'Lock 'em up, Dry 'em out and let 'em go!'
That will create more problems of its own and likely not solve the the real underlying issues.
And I think we have to acknowledge that we just cant solve the real underlying issues. As long as people and drugs exist this will continue. Humans have been using drugs of various forms and varieties since the Dawn of Time.
The bolded is an important point. People have been using opiates in north america since way before confederation. This is not a new problem, in is a centuries old problem, and the fact of the matter is that processing drugs addictions through the criminal justice system has never worked, and is very expensive. It is not like the alternatives to safe injection sites are free. In fact, SIS relieve a lot of the burden from courts, jails and hospitals.
Last edited by TheIronMaiden; 03-06-2020 at 01:23 PM.
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I think Safe Injection Sites have their warts, as many programs like this do, but I also think we have to be careful not to let 'The Good' become a casualty of the 'less than perfect.'
They are not solving the problem but they are contributing to it not being exacerbated while we learn more to come up with a real, practical solution.
It wasnt long ago when I'd likely have agreed with the concept of: 'Lock 'em up, Dry 'em out and let 'em go!'
That will create more problems of its own and likely not solve the the real underlying issues.
And I think we have to acknowledge that we just cant solve the real underlying issues. As long as people and drugs exist this will continue. Humans have been using drugs of various forms and varieties since the Dawn of Time.
I do think the fact most of these agencies do not have a standard lingo and definitions is problematic. They are all also run separately so they only address what they feel most passionate about.
I think shelters should be either a government run program or at the least a bit more government oversight than currently goes on. To me 20 agencies pulling in the same direction with the ability to communicate effectively between each other is a vital, logical step in our fight.
Instead we get 20 (just throwing out a random number of agencies in Calgary) agencies all with their own lingo and definitions all pulling in different directions. It's stupid and to me very ineffective.
Heck even the "simple" definition of homeless is difficult to agree on.
Heck even the "simple" definition of homeless is difficult to agree on.
That Seattle video really made something apparent to me; despite the overwhelming evidence that homelessness is strongly intertwined with drug addiction and mental illness, it seems to me there is a strong resistance to reason honestly about this reality.
I personally use the term 'homelessness' as short-hand to talk about the condition of being chronically homeless, not people down on their luck but otherwise of sound mind and body (not that it isn't also worth tackling), and I usually find myself having to clarify this distinction when talking to people who are very eager to remind me that not all homeless people have mental or drug issues.
Pfft. It's WAY cheaper to live on a cruise ship now than it is to live here. They're practically giving the cruises away.
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Originally Posted by GGG
I hear that all have a buy 1 week get 2 free offer now.
Kind of a dick move, but I'd be fine with chipping in via tax dollars and sending these junkies on a three-week cruise. They'd have fun, and we'd all get a break from their shenanigans for a while. No drugs out at sea, so they could dry out for a bit.
