BC Lags Behind Other Provinces in Life Satisfaction

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Instead we're letting addicts and 12 year old kids hooked on hardcore drugs dictate what they want to do. They do drugs.

The fact that 10 and 12 year olds are allowed to override their parents wishes and continue to kill themselves with drugs is wild and shows how far the pendulum has swung on government enablement.

That's not what the article says though. It says that those decisions were made by health care providers. We also don't know why health care providers made the decisions they did. I don't think locking kids in mental health care facilities solely because that's what the parents want sets a great precedent.

####, are kids allowed to even legally allowed to decide to skip school? Are they allowed to shoplift or burn down houses? But fentanyl? Government says hey, here's some needles, go nuts kid! #### what your parents want for you.

The choice is to either give people clean supplies that allow them to use drugs in a manner that reduces the chances of them getting and spreading infectious diseases (i.e., hepatitis, HIV, etc.). This has the knock-on effect of reducing strain on an already overburdened health care system.

We know that this policy works because the infectious diseases associated with drug use have gone down since these policies have been implemented.

What is the alternative that you're suggesting?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But one of the underlying issues of drug addiction is some people just love to get wasted. Absolutely love it. Want to get wasted as much as they can as often as they can.

A lot of well-intentioned, educated people who see this as strictly a socioeconomic or health issue seem to have trouble putting themselves in the shoes of heavy drug users. They champion policies and supports that would help someone like them get clean and off the streets. That’s why they struggle to understand why, when presented with the choice between a medically-supervised, free, clean opiate substitute, and a street drug that costs money and may kill you, many choose the latter (or both). Or why most addicts have no interest in entering rehab.

I had dinner on the weekend with an old friend who I’ve known since we were kids. We got to talking about his brother, Greg, who’s been homeless for over 20 years now.

Greg is a very bright guy. Raised in an upper-middle-class home. But since he was in jr high, he has loved to get wasted. Booze, pot, acid, speed, meth, coke - he loves it all. When he was in his 20s, he had his #### together enough to work regularly and pay rent in low-end apartments. By his mid-30s he wasn’t reliable enough to work a 9-5 job, so he couldn’t make regular rent, and drifted from friend’s place to friend’s place, burning bridges by living like a pig, stealing, etc until he wound up on the street.

These days he lives at the drop-in centre 5 days a week, and on weekends musters up enough money to pay for a hotel room with a couple buddies and party until Sunday, when he goes back to the drop-in centre.

Unaffordable housing isn’t the issue with Greg - he couldn’t pay rent regularly even when it was cheap to live in Calgary. Give him a free place to live and he would trash it within weeks. His parents tried to get him into rehab many times, with zero success. For Greg, any future that involves getting wasted less is a future he has no interest in.

Ah well. If Greg likes just getting high, then all policies should be based off of people like Greg.

Do you think the people who make these policy decisions don't actually have data that supports the policy decisions?

What a categorically stupid post.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

So cliff. You think Greg just loves to get wasted no matter what? Life, loved ones, responsibilities be damned! Versus having an undiagnosed mental health issue? That's what you think is the reason for all of the drugs and homelessness?

Yes. And the problem with North America, is we just like to party. Just leave the people alone to party, it's fine:

https://ourworldindata.org/illicit-drug-use

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

That's not what the article says though. It says that those decisions were made by health care providers. We also don't know why health care providers made the decisions they did. I don't think locking kids in mental health care facilities solely because that's what the parents want sets a great precedent.



The choice is to either give people clean supplies that allow them to use drugs in a manner that reduces the chances of them getting and spreading infectious diseases (i.e., hepatitis, HIV, etc.). This has the knock-on effect of reducing strain on an already overburdened health care system.

We know that this policy works because the infectious diseases associated with drug use have gone down since these policies have been implemented.

What is the alternative that you're suggesting?

Providing clean needles doesn’t mean you have to tolerate open use. Lots of European cities needle exchanges and safe supply, but do not let drug users gather or use in public spaces.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Are they doing anything besides this? I'm getting pretty burnt out on this stance.

"We'll happily do nothing else and let more and more people continue to live in abject misery, but at least we'll let them do it in a safe warm environment and make sure they live a bit longer".

No one seems to be actually proposing anything that is going to reverse the trends on addiction and homelessness. Like, try SOMETHING.

Maybe the BC Greens are proposing many more things, I'm ignorant. Just in general, this is the trend I'm seeing across the board, however.

You're conflating two issues that are related but separate. Addiction rates in B.C. are declining as overdose deaths are increasing. Implementing expanded safe supply and potentially allowing compassion clubs to provide more options for safe consumption sites will reduce overdose deaths. Having more safe consumption sites should also help alleviate the issue of open-air drug use.

It takes time, but we are starting to see the fruits of some of these policies. The last BC Coroners report showed a decrease of 9% in overdose deaths from last year.

We've also seen a few pilot projects where giving people housing tends to help them get clean. This isn't even just that's been demonstrated in B.C. Finland has had a very successful housing program that has reduced homelessness and addiction there.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Providing clean needles doesn’t mean you have to tolerate open use. Lots of European cities needle exchanges and safe supply, but do not let drug users gather or use in public spaces.

Cliff, we've discussed this multiple times, and you either don't understand what I'm saying or don't care. But let me try to make it a little more clear to you.

EUROPE DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME TOXIC DRUG SUPPLY THAT WE DO

If you force people to use drugs in private while there is a toxic drug supply issue, you will increase the chances that they will die from an overdose. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?

[Galakanokis]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Damn. The BC storms has killed 1 person.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1848429430235943376

Sad news. Not too many places along that stretch of road and pretty remote for being so close to town. A few people are still cut off from what I understand although that was earlier this morning.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Ah well. If Greg likes just getting high, then all policies should be based off of people like Greg.

Do you think the people who make these policy decisions don't actually have data that supports the policy decisions?

What a categorically stupid post.

I was responding to this specific comment (I quoted it and everything):

But the problem is, no one seems to be able (or willing) to successfully tackle the underlying issues driving drug addiction which are things like lack of mental health supports, housing insecurity, etc

You see a lot of this kind of wonkish structural analysis of addiction. It glosses over the uncomfortable fact that the root cause of addiction for a lot of people isn’t socio-economic - it’s the fact they genuinely enjoy getting wasted.

And related to that is another uncomfortable truth - only a small fraction of addicts willingly avail themselves of rehab. So any program that relies on voluntary admission to treatment will only nibble around the edges of the problem.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But one of the underlying issues of drug addiction is some people just love to get wasted. Absolutely love it. Want to get wasted as much as they can as often as they can.

A lot of well-intentioned, educated people who see this as strictly a socioeconomic or health issue seem to have trouble putting themselves in the shoes of heavy drug users. They champion policies and supports that would help someone like them get clean and off the streets. That’s why they struggle to understand why, when presented with the choice between a medically-supervised, free, clean opiate substitute, and a street drug that costs money and may kill you, many choose the latter (or both). Or why most addicts have no interest in entering rehab.

I had dinner on the weekend with an old friend who I’ve known since we were kids. We got to talking about his brother, Greg, who’s been homeless for over 20 years now.

Greg is a very bright guy. Raised in an upper-middle-class home. But since he was in jr high, he has loved to get wasted. Booze, pot, acid, speed, meth, coke - he loves it all. When he was in his 20s, he had his #### together enough to work regularly and pay rent in low-end apartments. By his mid-30s he wasn’t reliable enough to work a 9-5 job, so he couldn’t make regular rent, and drifted from friend’s place to friend’s place, burning bridges by living like a pig, stealing, etc until he wound up on the street.

These days he lives at the drop-in centre 5 days a week, and on weekends musters up enough money to pay for a hotel room with a couple buddies and party until Sunday, when he goes back to the drop-in centre.

Unaffordable housing isn’t the issue with Greg - he couldn’t pay rent regularly even when it was cheap to live in Calgary. Give him a free place to live and he would trash it within weeks. His parents tried to get him into rehab many times, with zero success. For Greg, any future that involves getting wasted less is a future he has no interest in.

My experience has always been that when you are living in an SRO or a tent on the DTES or any other skid row, constantly dealing with illness and infections, having to do unspeakable things to fix you aren't getting high anymore, at this level you have some deep underlying pain the drugs enable you to cope with, chances are your buddy's brother had a scoutmaster or an uncle, maybe a priest that abused him, maybe not but that has always been my experience, bear in mind your friend and his family may not know what happened.

I have one old kid that lives the life downtown, he doesn't get high, he fixes to avoid withdrawal and dull the reality of his ####ty life, all the friends he's lost, all the grim things he's done and had done to him.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

There is a very large misunderstanding as to what the goals of decriminalization are. It's not about letting people get high when ever and where ever they want. It's about removing stigma, putting people in places they are more likely to find avenues to help or get help if something happens to them.

It should not work alone and cannot work without other policies being in place.

In theory that's how it works, but in practice it means fire fighters delivering Naloxone to the same person 50 times a year.

To me, decriminalization is like Unschooling. Yeah, there are people and circumstances where children can learn to be self sustaining adults by being unschooled. However, there are just as many who become NEETS. In theory unschooling is a way to help people who don't thrive in an institutional setting, but in practice, it can enables people who are not interested in becoming self sustaining adults.

Having upstream interventions is the best solution, on that we agree. We also can all agree that putting people in jail for nickel and dime drug use does not solve the problem. We should also agree that addicts are powerless to their addiction and are unreliable to themselves. Addicts are also oblivious ( when using) to the harm they cause to people around them. As such there needs to be meaningful intervention, so that otherwise self sustaining people do not get harmed by living surrounded by drug addicts. That doesn't need to mean sweeping people off the streets so we can ignore them, but it also shouldn't mean that people are doing drugs at every downtown street corner with no consequences ( outside of the obvious health and social issues).

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You see a lot of this kind of wonkish structural analysis of addiction. It glosses over the uncomfortable fact that the root cause of addiction for a lot of people isn’t socio-economic - it’s the fact they genuinely enjoy getting wasted.

Source?

And related to that is another uncomfortable truth - only a small fraction of addicts willingly avail themselves of rehab. So any program that relies on voluntary admission to treatment will only nibble around the edges of the problem.

There aren't enough voluntary treatment centres to serve the people currently attempting to access them. There are also cost barriers for many people, not to mention the stigma attached to admitting to drug use.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

In theory that's how it works, but in practice it means fire fighters delivering Naloxone to the same person 50 times a year.

To me, decriminalization is like Unschooling. Yeah, there are people and circumstances where children can learn to be self sustaining adults by being unschooled. However, there are just as many who become NEETS. In theory unschooling is a way to help people who don't thrive in an institutional setting, but in practice, it can enables people who are not interested in becoming self sustaining adults.

Decrim isn't just for addicts experiencing homelessness and mental illness. It's also what leads to harm reduction tents at music festivals and testing sites in urban centres. All of this makes it less likely that a casual or first-time user will die from taking party drugs.

Again, you're conflating the two issues. Addiction make it more likely that someone will experience an overdose, but decrim makes it less likely that they'll experience that overdose out of the reach of people who can stabilize them.

If you want people to get treatment for their addictions, they have to first be alive to access said treatment.

The NIMBY position on this is pretty unconscionable, IMO. It's essentially saying "I'm willing to sacrifice the lives of some drug users so that I don't have to see drugs being used out in the open."

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Decrim isn't just for addicts experiencing homelessness and mental illness. It's also what leads to harm reduction tents at music festivals and testing sites in urban centres. All of this makes it less likely that a casual or first-time user will die from taking party drugs.

Again, you're conflating the two issues. Addiction make it more likely that someone will experience an overdose, but decrim makes it less likely that they'll experience that overdose out of the reach of people who can stabilize them.

If you want people to get treatment for their addictions, they have to first be alive to access said treatment.

The NIMBY position on this is pretty unconscionable, IMO. It's essentially saying "I'm willing to sacrifice the lives of some drug users so that I don't have to see drugs being used out in the open."

We agree that upstream elements like drug testing and education are a good thing. We also probably agree that occasional drug use is perfectly healthy. Those are worthwhile things we are doing.



Where we disagree and the focus of the debate over the last few days is what to do with people with serious additions. Having considered your position the foundation of our differences is that I don't think it's wrong for people to not want addicts loitering near their homes and work places. I don't think that's a NIMBY thing, I think that personal safety issue. Addicts abusing drugs infant of you is Harmful.



Because we are being careful with semantics, I want to be clear that I don't think all addicts are dangerous ( though I think having people overdose in front of you is traumatic). I also do not think Nikel and Dime arrests or general police harassment of homeless peoples is an appropriate solution.



If I had to offer a solution it would be:

If you overdose in public you get put in mandatory treatment, where you are forced to pick up litter, and sort recycling for minimum wage. I know, punishment makes.addicts adverse to calling for help and thus increases harm. But like I said, letting people shoot up everywhere also Increases harm for everyone else. sometimes you have to choose between two evils.

[TheIronMaiden]

Actually I want to change my idea for a solution. We let meth heads do all the meth they want. But they have to sort recycling and pick up litter and wash piss and #### off public spaces. pay them and Give em free smokes too why not.

[opendoor]

Looks like New Brunswick booted out the PCs and Higgs even lost his own seat. It's good to see some push back against right wing craziness. Probably a look into the future of BC if the Conservatives manage to form government with their current crop of extremists.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

If you overdose in public you get put in mandatory treatment, where you are forced to pick up litter, and sort recycling for minimum wage. I know, punishment makes.addicts adverse to calling for help and thus increases harm. But like I said, letting people shoot up everywhere also Increases harm for everyone else. sometimes you have to choose between two evils.

How is this fundamentally different than prison?

Also, are we expanding this to people who get blackout drunk in public and need to go to the hospital?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by rubecube

How is this fundamentally different than prison?

Also, are we expanding this to people who get blackout drunk in public and need to go to the hospital?

Yes! Lets get Draconian!

If you're Drunk in public they throw you in the Drunk-Tank.

If you're Stoned in public they should throw you in the Dunk-Tank.

People can pay for the opportunity to Dunk you and then you have to tread water until you sober up. Or else.

Brilliant idea rube! I'm glad you suggested it!

I know I've said this before, and this is a very, very nuanced issue, but Humanity has been finding ways to get Drunk or High since Time Immemorial.

The only thing special about this current crop of Humanity is that we learned to synthesize some of the worst, most insane #### imaginable.

You haul the average Opium addict out of the Den in the 1400s and hand him some fentanyl he'd either think you were a God or a Demon.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

How is this fundamentally different than prison?

Also, are we expanding this to people who get blackout drunk in public and need to go to the hospital?

Because it's focused on treatment and rehabilitation in a controlled environment as aposed to punishment by boredom.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by rubecube

You're conflating two issues that are related but separate. Addiction rates in B.C. are declining as overdose deaths are increasing. Implementing expanded safe supply and potentially allowing compassion clubs to provide more options for safe consumption sites will reduce overdose deaths. Having more safe consumption sites should also help alleviate the issue of open-air drug use.

It takes time, but we are starting to see the fruits of some of these policies. The last BC Coroners report showed a decrease of 9% in overdose deaths from last year.

We've also seen a few pilot projects where giving people housing tends to help them get clean. This isn't even just that's been demonstrated in B.C. Finland has had a very successful housing program that has reduced homelessness and addiction there.

I think the issues are highly related. One is attacking leading indicators, one is dealing with lagging indicators.

I'm a huge proponent of housing first. There's enough data from decades ago that we shouldn't just be dicking around with this and actually implementing it at scale.

Someone needs to take serious aim at providing social services to kids in troubled households. Our "public" schools charging hundreds in fees, kids under fed because they rely on parents that aren't providing for them, and the lack of available extracurricular activities to kids without money or access to a car for transport are places it would be nice to see get some actual attention.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Because it's focused on treatment and rehabilitation in a controlled environment as aposed to punishment by boredom.

And where are these magical treatment facilities in the province, staffed with people who know how to force people to do minimum wage labour?