So my daughter was driving home from work on Thursday last week and she was stopped at a red light. Some fataing crackhead draped his upper body on top of her hood/windshield/cowl area of the car and proceeded to just stare at her with a huge creepy smile. She's just 16 and it scared the #### out of her. He was one of those clowns that stands in the middle of intersections begging for change. This was around Anderson/Elbow at like 7:30pm. So a big 'fata you' to all the dopes who give these people money and encourage this behaviour.
Last night I was in South Centre Mall at one of the glasses stores. This lunatic of a drug addict dressed head to toe in a Toronto Blue Jays get-up barges in and accuses me of putting her daughter and mother in a coma just because she is - and I quote - a "crack whore." Hollow cheeks, sores all over her face, rail thin, blathering on about how Calgary is going to get an MLB team. I laughed at her and she came at me like a superfast zombie screaming. Like, wtf.
The girl working in the store looked scared out of her mind. I had the neighbouring store call security and I just had to hang around to make sure this sick fata didn't do anything to the girl; however, I felt pretty helpless. Like, the "crack whore" wouldn't have been a problem for me to handle physically, I wouldn't think, but like I want to get myself into some physical entanglement with her that could potentially cause problems for me.
IDK what the point of this is, but holy #### do we ever have a problem on our hands with these strung out people that I don't see how we're going to fix. It was one thing when they just sort of stuck to the inner city, which worked for me, but now they're spreading into the good end of town and it's very annoying and off-putting.
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Alberta's personal tax rate for the middle class is lower than both Saskatchewan and BC. Easy increase there. Get the rest from small businesses and a royalty review.
Move to UBI and "pay" each person out on the street $80k a year. The vast majority suffer from mental illness.
So my daughter was driving home from work on Thursday last week and she was stopped at a red light. Some fataing crackhead draped his upper body on top of her hood/windshield/cowl area of the car and proceeded to just stare at her with a huge creepy smile. She's just 16 and it scared the #### out of her. He was one of those clowns that stands in the middle of intersections begging for change. This was around Anderson/Elbow at like 7:30pm. So a big 'fata you' to all the dopes who give these people money and encourage this behaviour.
Last night I was in South Centre Mall at one of the glasses stores. This lunatic of a drug addict dressed head to toe in a Toronto Blue Jays get-up barges in and accuses me of putting her daughter and mother in a coma just because she is - and I quote - a "crack whore." Hollow cheeks, sores all over her face, rail thin, blathering on about how Calgary is going to get an MLB team. I laughed at her and she came at me like a superfast zombie screaming. Like, wtf.
The girl working in the store looked scared out of her mind. I had the neighbouring store call security and I just had to hang around to make sure this sick fata didn't do anything to the girl; however, I felt pretty helpless. Like, the "crack whore" wouldn't have been a problem for me to handle physically, I wouldn't think, but like I want to get myself into some physical entanglement with her that could potentially cause problems for me.
IDK what the point of this is, but holy #### do we ever have a problem on our hands with these strung out people that I don't see how we're going to fix. It was one thing when they just sort of stuck to the inner city, which worked for me, but now they're spreading into the good end of town and it's very annoying and off-putting.
Perhaps a publicly funded drop-in center or safe injection site at one of the man made lakes in the South or "good end of town"? If they are finding their way there we really should be some infrastructure to assist and get them off the street.
Had a junkie a few weeks ago, while downtown, say to me "if it were 25 years ago I would have punched your lights out". I did nothing to provoke this threat from him, I was just walking down the sidewalk.
How brazen they have become has completely exploded since covid, and it appears all of the enabling we have done recently isn't working. I'm honestly not sure if the answer is to do more for them, or do less.
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Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.
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Perhaps a publicly funded drop-in center or safe injection site at one of the man made lakes in the South or "good end of town"? If they are finding their way there we really should be some infrastructure to assist and get them off the street.
Brilliant and let’s decriminalize the drugs while we’re at it.
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Alberta's personal tax rate for the middle class is lower than both Saskatchewan and BC. Easy increase there. Get the rest from small businesses and a royalty review.
Move to UBI and "pay" each person out on the street $80k a year. The vast majority suffer from mental illness.
This is a great way to increase revenue. Kenney was a moron for lowering the small business tax rate.
Throwing money at the type of meth head I'm seeing around isn't going to do jack squat, though. Be it UBI, free place to stay, whatever...I just don't see how that does anything to help the total disasters some people have become.
Say you give the meth heads I just described $6,700 per month like you suggest, what happens next? How is the problem closer to being solved with that?
Whenever I see a panhandler that looks like a drug addict. I always give them $5 and say, take the train down to Canyon Meadows station, the people there are very generous.
Moves them out of my end of town and into the burbs!
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Had a junkie a few weeks ago, while downtown, say to me "if it were 25 years ago I would have punched your lights out". I did nothing to provoke this threat from him, I was just walking down the sidewalk.
How brazen they have become has completely exploded since covid, and it appears all of the enabling we have done recently isn't working. I'm honestly not sure if the answer is to do more for them, or do less.
Yeah, I really feel like we're feeding the monster with trying to cut them slack and just letting them nasty up all our public spaces.
Is there something in between a jail, a psych ward and a detox facility as well as some mechanism to snatch these people off the street and house them for a while to get them clean and thinking clearly? I don't think the kid gloves are helping.
Yeah, I really feel like we're feeding the monster with trying to cut them slack and just letting them nasty up all our public spaces.
Is there something in between a jail, a psych ward and a detox facility as well as some mechanism to snatch these people off the street and house them for a while to get them clean and thinking clearly? I don't think the kid gloves are helping.
What about tracking/shock collars? We can through them on them and ring fence them to certain areas of the city? Keep them out of the "good part of town"? Kind of like the movie Elysium where we keep the "poor" and "addicted" out?
Yeah, I really feel like we're feeding the monster with trying to cut them slack and just letting them nasty up all our public spaces.
Is there something in between a jail, a psych ward and a detox facility as well as some mechanism to snatch these people off the street and house them for a while to get them clean and thinking clearly? I don't think the kid gloves are helping.
I'd really like to see something like Rhode Island's MAT program tried here
(skip to 44:00)
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Yeah, I really feel like we're feeding the monster with trying to cut them slack and just letting them nasty up all our public spaces.
Is there something in between a jail, a psych ward and a detox facility as well as some mechanism to snatch these people off the street and house them for a while to get them clean and thinking clearly? I don't think the kid gloves are helping.
What about tracking/shock collars? We can through them on them and ring fence them to certain areas of the city? Keep them out of the "good part of town"? Kind of like the movie Elysium where we keep the "poor" and "addicted" out?
Hey, sorry, but do you have any actual ideas?
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The thing about the Portugal example that's often left out is the compulsory treatment that accompanied decriminalization. Yes, you don't get criminally charged with drug possession, but it's also not just some free for all. You have to report for treatment, there are drug tests, and you can be locked up (not in prison, but in a treatment facility) for failure to comply.
Our approach of just letting crackheads roam free to cause chaos while simultaneously increasing the availability of drugs is the worst of both worlds; and I say that as someone that thinks recreational drug use should generally be legal.
Our approach of just letting crackheads roam free to cause chaos while simultaneously increasing the availability of drugs is the worst of both worlds; and I say that as someone that thinks recreational drug use should generally be legal.
Yes!!! Our approach is lazy, and pretends to be out of compassion. The reality is it's leading to more and more people slipping into miserable lives living among the zombie horde, and more miserable lives for those that have to face the horde in day to day life. There's nothing compassionate about it, we're failing these people. It takes real coordinated effort to help them, not just doling out food, shelter and a place to shoot up until they eventually kill themselves.
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The thing about the Portugal example that's often left out is the compulsory treatment that accompanied legalization. Yes, you don't get criminally charged with drug possession, but it's also not just some free for all. You have to report for treatment, there are drug tests, and you can be locked up (not in prison, but in a treatment facility) for failure to comply.
Our approach of just letting crackheads roam free to cause chaos while simultaneously increasing the availability of drugs is the worst of both worlds; and I say that as someone that thinks recreational drug use should generally be legal.
Agreed, which is why I linked that Rhode Island program above. Decriminalize personal drug possession, actually arrest addicts who commit crimes, and then force them into the program to be eligible for release. Take the millions of dollars spent on drug enforcement and direct it into treatment programs that actually have some teeth
Of course those are just the first steps. The real root cause of the increase Calgary's drug problems are rising poverty levels. Vancouver has dealt with this for decades because of how unaffordable it is to live there, and now we're seeing more issues now with the sharp increase in real estate/rent and ridiculously high inflation. Even the best drug treatment and rehabilitation strategies won't matter if people can't afford rent or groceries
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Of course Bill Burr has already commented on this:
"When I was a kid, you could only be crazy outside for about 15 minutes before . . . "
NSFW!
In all seriousness though, this issue could be an intertwining of many things:
- Everyone has more individual liberty 'ie - we can no longer institutionalize people with chronic mental health issues like we used to.
- 'Harm reduction' policies - in practice harm reduction strategies seems to be only be viewed from the perspective of the drug addict and not the aggregate of the negative externalities that they bestow upon the public and certainly not the aggregate negative externalities of all drug addicts.
getting a little tired of the crack/meth heads
