BC Lags Behind Other Provinces in Life Satisfaction

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Yeah, so I am kind of confused why everyone becomes so puritanical about public drug use here.

Can you cite some non-puritanical countries about hard drug use that Canada should model itself after? Because the Netherlands isn’t it. Outside of the Amsterdam centrum - which most Dutch people regard as an embarrassing ####hole - you don’t see people using hard drugs in public. Or even pot, really. And authorities are actually cracking down on Amsterdam now - it has become seedy and over-touristed.

Fact is, there is no society on earth where citizens are tolerant of people shooting up, passed out on public sidewalks, or staggering through the streets off their heads. None.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Can you cite some non-puritanical countries about hard drug use that Canada should model itself after? Because the Netherlands isn’t it. Outside of the Amsterdam centrum - which most Dutch people regard as an embarrassing ####hole - you don’t see people using hard drugs in public. Or even pot, really. And authorities are actually cracking down on Amsterdam now - it has become seedy and over-touristed.

Fact is, there is no society on earth where citizens are tolerant of people shooting up, passed out on public sidewalks, or staggering through the streets off their heads. None.

Vancouver pretty much has.
What you described is the daily norm and what I see out my kitchen window almost nightly.
People have reluctantly accepted this as our new norm and the staggering deaths that come with it sadly.
The ideological idiots running things are like gun lobbyists in the US. No matter how many people are dying, they're convinced more access and supply is the always the way to go.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Yeah, so I am kind of confused why everyone becomes so puritanical about public drug use here.

I think its pretty clear. The thing is...public drug use, zombies on the streets, muggings and robberies....bothers other people.

Individuals stoned out of their minds and in medical distress on the C-Train or at stations or on the streets bothers people.

You look out your back door and see people doing drugs in your yard? That bothers people.

They've broken the fundamental covenant.

If you dont have your own home we have places where you can pursue this lifestyle. Safe injection sites, free drugs, there are options. It again comes down to normalization.

This I think is the issue Canada has to address. I wont speak to America because I dont live there, but if you're getting blasted in public, regardless of your substance of choice, you've broken the covenant.

I've long advocated for European-style Alcohol policies. Because if you're wandering down the street with your wife and kids, you're not getting wasted because that is not the norm of your scenario.

Lock you up in a Beer Garden? Guaranteed different outcome.

Very similar. If you allow people to use public spaces to do hard drugs without consequence? Well...there is no 'without consequence.'

The only difference is that you're shifting that consequence onto society at large.

Its like if a child throws a tantrum in a store because they want candy and then giving them everything they want and letting them have it whenever and wherever they want.

Guess whats going to happen? You've normalized a behavioral pattern.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Yeah, so I am kind of confused why everyone becomes so puritanical about public drug use here.

It's surely for lack of trying on your part, then.

Let's not pretend that there isn't actually a problem with it, when we all damn well know there is and it's staring us in the face every day. And it's not even specifically public 'drug' use. I think most people here would agree that the restrictions on cannabis use being more restrictive than cigarettes, for example, is absurd and an example of bad, overbearing drug policy.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Yeah, that was probably one of the most divorced-from-reality takes I've read on that particular subject. I have friends in both CPS and WPS, your post tracks with everything they seem to say on the matter.

So you're just going to ignore decades of evidence regarding the intent behind possession laws and the history of police using them to harass and target marginalized peoples because you have some friends who are police?

If we're just playing the anecdotal game, I also have friends and family who are current and/or retired who've told me that they worked with officers who absolutely enjoyed cracking down on drugs users because they just saw them as junkies.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

The ideological idiots running things are like gun lobbyists in the US. No matter how many people are dying, they're convinced more access and supply is the always the way to go.

Okay, so I'll ask you the same question that blankall and others have dodged. Given the current infrastructure limitations in B.C., what do you propose as an alternative?

[afc wimbledon]

I would caution anyone looking to Portugal or Switzerland as indicators for policy in Canada to realize their population is so wholly different to ours, they have nothing like our first nations community with their appalling history of neglect and abuse, that their policies are not going to transplant to Canada particularly well

[tony-soprano]

Hastings street looks like the set of Walking Dead.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Vancouver pretty much has.
What you described is the daily norm and what I see out my kitchen window almost nightly.
People have reluctantly accepted this as our new norm and the staggering deaths that come with it sadly.
The ideological idiots running things are like gun lobbyists in the US. No matter how many people are dying, they're convinced more access and supply is the always the way to go.

Overdose deaths are up about 2.5 times post-pandemic to over 2500 a year and rising. It's a staggering number, especially as the number of people on the streets seems, from my observations anyways, to be rising.

It's more than just drug policy at work here. Inflation, specifically as it relates to cost of living and housing, is pushing more and more people onto the street, where they find solace in drugs. This also, somewhat, the result of ideological idiots. For decades, the province refused densification efforts to maintain the "character" of the city. Now we have rotting houses along along our major arteries and a lack of necessary construction infrastructure. Good luck getting proper building permits from the city.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

As some expected.

https://nationalpost.com/news/opiate...ss-canada-rcmp

B.C.'s 'safe supply' drugs being sold by organized crime across Canada: RCMP

Thousands of opiate pills obtained by prescription through a “safe supply” harm reduction program have been seized by police in Prince George, B.C., after they were found to have been diverted to organized crime groups reselling them across Canada, the RCMP said.

“Many of the pills that were seized had been prescribed to specific individuals but were found all collected together, no longer belonging to those individuals,” she added. “It might mean how we regulate our safe supply might need a sober second glance.”

Some of the recipients of the safe supply narcotics are apparently not satisfied with the government’s products.

“Our drug users are looking maybe for something more potent or something more specific than what they’d been prescribed,” said Cooper.

Search warrants by the RCMP’s Street Crew Unit have uncovered several drug trafficking groups dealing in safe supply drugs.

The RCMP investigation confirms fears of some who are opposed to safe supply as a way to curb spiking opiate addiction and drug-related deaths.

“If these are getting into the hands of our youth or young adults who may think this is a safe way to get high, it is concerning to us.

“It’s also concerning that it’s another way for organized crime groups to make money very quickly with little to no effort on their part,” Cooper said. “This is only perpetuating and possibly exacerbating the problem.”

Looks like the National Post article that started off this current round of discussion was intentionally misleading. As were Danielle Smith's and PP's follow up comments. Completely shocking from such bastions of objectivity and honesty as Post Media, PP, and Smith, I know.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canad...orth-and-rcmp/

Mike Farnworth told reporters he had spoken to the RCMP's commanding officer in B.C. about the seizure in Prince George and was told the idea that there is widespread diversion is "simply not true."

A subsequent statement attributed to John Brewer, assistant commissioner with the B.C. RCMP, echoed Farnworth's remarks.

Farnworth, who is also B.C.'s public safety minister, said Smith and Poilievre shouldn't have made claims about the seizure without waiting for all the information.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Looks like the National Post article that started off this current round of discussion was intentionally misleading. As were Danielle Smith's and PP's follow up comments. Completely shocking from such bastions of objectivity and honesty as Post Media, PP, and Smith, I know.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canad...orth-and-rcmp/

I can't imagine addicts selling their drugs to dealers, who then pool them and redistribute them. That seems absurd.

If addicts are selling the drugs, it's likely directly to another user or they could be trading them (for stronger stuff) with front line dealers in small amounts, who then cut them and resell them.

[afc wimbledon]

Having spent a lifetime working with drug users I can say in my experience users will at times trade their prescribed supply either for another type of drug, basically an opioid for a stimulant, coke or meth or just sell it for cash to make their rent or pay off a debt, it's not something addicts do very often though as they are essentially choosing to go through withdrawal which is grim, certainly wouldn't supply a dealer in regular product

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by blankall

I can't imagine addicts selling their drugs to dealers, who then pool them and redistribute them. That seems absurd.

If addicts are selling the drugs, it's likely directly to another user or they could be trading them (for stronger stuff) with front line dealers in small amounts, who then cut them and resell them.

Oh cool. So your response in the face of both the government and the RCMP saying there isn't any evidence of widespread diversion is essentially "It's happening. Trust me, bro."

If you have evidence that this is widespread, then please share with the group. Otherwise, I think we can treat your opinion on the matter as completely unfounded.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I would caution anyone looking to Portugal or Switzerland as indicators for policy in Canada to realize their population is so wholly different to ours, they have nothing like our first nations community with their appalling history of neglect and abuse, that their policies are not going to transplant to Canada particularly well

I think it's a cop out to say "we're different, that won't work here".

In Alberta, a First Nations person is 18% more likely to die from a Fentanyl overdose. While that's awful, and it's own problem to be solved, we're talking 6.5% of the population facing a disproportionate part of the problem.

In absolute numbers, if the policy only works for European whities for some arbitrary reason, we'd still be stopping a massive amount of loss of life, and the many many knock-on effects.

Why not try and find out if it works here instead of dithering on about how we need to somehow be innovators in the world of ending overdose deaths?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Oh cool. So your response in the face of both the government and the RCMP saying there isn't any evidence of widespread diversion is essentially "It's happening. Trust me, bro."

If you have evidence that this is widespread, then please share with the group. Otherwise, I think we can treat your opinion on the matter as completely unfounded.

I was specifically stating it wasn't widespread, at least not on an organized level. I know of many people who've bought, sold, and traded other prescription drugs, so I don't know why that wouldn't happen with safe supply.

The article was specifically about a widescale operation involving a seizure of gathered prescription drugs, which, I agree, is unlikely.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I think it's a cop out to say "we're different, that won't work here".

In Alberta, a First Nations person is 18% more likely to die from a Fentanyl overdose. While that's awful, and it's own problem to be solved, we're talking 6.5% of the population facing a disproportionate part of the problem.

In absolute numbers, if the policy only works for European whities for some arbitrary reason, we'd still be stopping a massive amount of loss of life, and the many many knock-on effects.

Why not try and find out if it works here instead of dithering on about how we need to somehow be innovators in the world of ending overdose deaths?

I am not saying it won't work, I am saying it's results will be different, in the same way drug policy applied to Vancouver will have different results in Kerrisdale or Kits than it does on the DTES, what drives people to drugs and keeps them using is pain, a history of abuse and neglect, lack of opportunity and (ironically) social acceptance amongst your peer group.

If you have grown up in a native community with a history of generational abuse and poverty and drug and alcohol abuse, residential schools etc your level of pain and your utter lack of opportunity is ten twenty times that of middle class white folks in Portugal or Switzerland or Vancouver, it has nothing to with race, I can create just as effed up a group of white folks given a 100 to 200 years of abuse and oppression, the closest we have to that in my experience would be the poorer areas of Scotland and Ireland where they have grim levels of addiction and overdose

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Oh cool. So your response in the face of both the government and the RCMP saying there isn't any evidence of widespread diversion is essentially "It's happening. Trust me, bro."

If you have evidence that this is widespread, then please share with the group. Otherwise, I think we can treat your opinion on the matter as completely unfounded.

I have a strong inkling this messaging is going to change sooner rather than later.

[afc wimbledon]

The long term trade in prescription drugs is more predicated on Dr's over prescribing to non addicts that have peripheral contacts with the drug world who then sell their drugs

Every now and then as well a Dr gets busted for prescribing Oxy to a well selected and coached group of patients that the dealers set up, the Dr usually has a loan or an addiction themselves or just gets a regular blow job, back in the 80's Tualin and Ritalin was a popular injectable heroin substitute all prescribed by about 8 doctors across the province who were getting back handers and sexual favours, went on for a couple of years

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I am not saying it won't work, I am saying it's results will be different, in the same way drug policy applied to Vancouver will have different results in Kerrisdale or Kits than it does on the DTES, what drives people to drugs and keeps them using is pain, a history of abuse and neglect, lack of opportunity and (ironically) social acceptance amongst your peer group.

If you have grown up in a native community with a history of generational abuse and poverty and drug and alcohol abuse, residential schools etc your level of pain and your utter lack of opportunity is ten twenty times that of middle class white folks in Portugal or Switzerland or Vancouver, it has nothing to with race, I can create just as effed up a group of white folks given a 100 to 200 years of abuse and oppression, the closest we have to that in my experience would be the poorer areas of Scotland and Ireland where they have grim levels of addiction and overdose

Absolutely, the race doesn't matter a ton. We see this happening in Middle America, and even rural Alberta where drug use by ethnic Europeans is becoming rampant. I'd be curious what addiction looks like with Irish Travellers.

Fixing all of the upstream issues of drugs is absolutely where our full efforts should be, but we can't wave our hands at the rest of the issue either. I don't think we disagree on anything here.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by blankall

I was specifically stating it wasn't widespread, at least not on an organized level. I know of many people who've bought, sold, and traded other prescription drugs, so I don't know why that wouldn't happen with safe supply.

The article was specifically about a widescale operation involving a seizure of gathered prescription drugs, which, I agree, is unlikely.

Okay, I misinterpreted then. Yes, trading prescription drugs for recreational drugs has been happening forever. A younger rubecube may or may not have traded his ADHD pills for molly back in his university days.

That said, if this is happening on a small scale, it's hardly a reason to trash the whole program. Again, the point of the program is to reduce the amount of preventable deaths in the province caused by the toxic drug supply. The question we really need to be asking is how much of a reduction justifies the safe supply program. For me, that threshold is very low.

It does look like we are starting to see some positive returns on the program, but it's still too soon to say.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...-bc-in-january

Toxic drugs killed 198 people in British Columbia in January, adding to an unrelenting toll that has killed more than 14,000 people since a public health emergency was declared eight years ago.

The number of deaths last month is 14 per cent cent lower than January last year, but still represents 42 people per 100,000 residents, or more than six deaths a day.

I also wanted to revisit your Portugal point from last week. One of the big differences between Portugal (and most of continental Europe) and B.C. is that Portugal does not currently face anything close to what B.C. faces in terms of a toxic drug supply crisis, and that's reflected in their drug policies.

It's much easier to have a tougher "stick" component when you have much smaller chances of those policies causing fatal overdoses.

Originally Posted by Zulu29

I have a strong inkling this messaging is going to change sooner rather than later.

Based on what? Regardless, do you think it's appropriate to disparage an entire program and mislead in the way the NP, Danielle Smith, and PP did without any supporting evidence?