Safe Injection Sites

[Anita Blake]

OK, so i live in downtown Vancouver. And there's this part of downtown Vancouver, known as the Downtown East Side, AKA crack-ville, AKA holy-crap-that-place-is-worse-than-third-world-countries. There's a small, few block area that is simply incomprehensible. Junkies wandering the streets, shooting up in the street, and the only thing the cops do about it is make sure the junkies aren't attackign traffic.

It's a political topic, to be sure, and the last mayor decided the he wanted to "help" these poor "people", by trying to get Safe Injection Sites, places where junkies could go and use clean needles and shoot up in a safe environment with nurses and counsellors available to them. Some people are against this notion, feelign that it will increase drug usage in the area. Some people feel that this is the only way to help drug addicts, that it's the only humanitarian thing to do.

now, i work only a few short blocks away from the first safe injection site, that just opend up last week, i think. I have a friend who owns a very nice condo right in the heart of crack-town, i've been there lots. So, this is my perspective on the whole thing, but i'd love to hear what others think.

I have seen a lot of these junkies on the street, "homeless" people, and honestly, it's really hard to pity them. When you see two women pulling eachother's hair on the street and fallign down to the sidewalk, and the people they are with just standing there doing nothing, it really occurs to you that these are not people at all. They are not bound by the rules of society. They do not accept society, they do not accept social behaviour, and it's hard to see a reason for society to accept their behaviour.

My friend lives blocks away from the new safe injection site, and she honestly wishes she could live somewhere else, but she just bought the place, and it's really close to work. She just has to walk to work through puddles of vomit and human feces every day. It's disgusting, really truly disgusting.

Anyway, what do people think about this idea, these safe injection sites? This is the first place of it's kind on north america, so it's rather experimental. Lots of people think it's a great idea. Me, i think they'd be better off actually arresting these people and putting them up on drug charges and forcing them clean. It'd probably cost the same amount, and be better for everyone involved.

[Malcor Sylverwood]

Well...a lot of this comes back to my quite obviously unpopular stance on drugs and alcohol...but, trying not to delve into that too much, how is this possible a good thing? Its seems that anyone who's fallen so far as to need to be handed a clean needle for a fix has fallen so far outside of anything remoletly attached to society. Not only are they not a part of the society, they aren't doing themselves any favors at all. Providing government funded clinics/detox/whatever, that makes some since to me, I can find the nobility in that...but this? It makes no sense and quite honestly turns my stomach.

Anyway, I guess my point is...I'm againt this...

~nods~

-Malcor "No way, Jose" Sylverwood

[Jennifer]

Wow...just...

I am so against enabling a drug habit. But you can't just arrest people and force them clean Anita. A lot of them would just go right back to being junkies, and then you wasted all that time and money and resource. That's a decision that is up to them, which is what this all comes down to. If they decide to be addicts then let them find their own needles and places to shoot up.

[QuirkyTemplate]

I'm going to agree with Malc on this one. I think it's good that people are worried about the health of these people, but I think that this is the wrong way to go about it. At this point, you're no longer trying to stop the detrimental behavior at its source, but at the fringes. It's like scooping water up in front of a leaking dam in order to stop it from flooding the city it overlooks.

[Dregs]

I thought that when the S.I.R. in Sydney opened it would move all the smackies off the street and keep them from dying. It has not worked after 3 or so years, they still shoot up in the streets of Kings Cross, they still die in the gutter. The SIR is just another place to shoot up. And then they tumble out, lie about the Cross, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. I probably have the most liberal views here when it comes to Class A's, but safe injecting rooms for smackheads was never a good idea.

[~KA3AK~]

I would not support Safe Injection Sites. Junkies are sick people, they are not criminals. You can't keep going around arresting them and putting them in jail like we do in the US. However, I think that we should put money into curing junkies of their addictions, instead of making it easier for them to get high.

[Jennifer]

You can't cure an addiction, you can only treat it. And that's a choice only they can make. They have to want to be treated.

/end small rant

[Amos]

I thought that when the S.I.R. in Sydney opened it would move all the smackies off the street and keep them from dying. It has not worked after 3 or so years, they still shoot up in the streets of Kings Cross, they still die in the gutter. The SIR is just another place to shoot up. And then they tumble out, lie about the Cross, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. I probably have the most liberal views here when it comes to Class A's, but safe injecting rooms for smackheads was never a good idea.

From what I've heard it's actually been pretty successful. People are still shooting up, but there has been a substantial decrease in od's and deaths and the people at the centre work to help people to get off the drugs. Not only that, but it means less people are doing it in the streets or in their homes, which means less needles lying around. So I'm all for it. I don't imagine that the supply of hard and ultra-addictive drugs is going to run out anytime soon, regardless of the work law enforcement agencies are doing, so if it's going to help even a few people quit or help prevent kids from exposure to needles and the drugs themselves why not do it?

I'm not in any way sympathising with the junkies of course. On an individual basis, sure there might be people who deserve help. The majority don't. But it's those individuals who do deserve it that are likely to go to the centre and ask for it.

*sigh* Everything needs to be taken on an individual basis where possible if you ask me. There's too much generalisation in the world today.

[Dregs]

From what I've seen and what people in the field have told me, that its not nearly as successful as people say it is. There is no significant difference in OD's brought into St Vincents, and nor would there be. OD'ing has very little to do with the location of where a smackie shoots up, but the quality of the drugs they are taking. Deaths have not been significantly lowered, because again, this relates to quality not location.

The safe injecting room do not use statistic on the hardcore users, those that shoot up anywhere anytime. These are the ones most likely to die, and least likely to use the room. All i can see the room doing is creating more hardcore users, but thats really a moot point, as they will eventually become hardcore users regardless of the exisitance of a safe place to shoot up.

Perhaps we need to decriminalise heroin. Perhaps we need to sell addicts hotshots. I don't think there is going to be a solution, because of politics and stupid people.

[Malcor Sylverwood]

You can't cure an addiction, you can only treat it. And that's a choice only they can make. They have to want to be treated.
/end small rant
I agree with the person needing to want to be saved...but for the rest?

"No man can walk so long in the Shadow that he cannot come again into the Light." - Ingtar, p.654 TGH

~chuckles~ Not entirely appropriate...but good enough ;)

-Malcor "Single minded" Sylverwood

[Jennifer]

I agree with the person needing to want to be saved...but for the rest?


There are individuals and non-profit organisations all over the place who go out and try to help those who don't actually seek the help. Unfortunately, a lot of these are largely working on donations and volunteers. The government could help out, but we would end up spending a lot of money and resources on people who would just end up where they were before the treatment...back on the street getting a fix. I wish there were a perfect plan, but there just isn't. And I don't see one ever coming up.

[Anita Blake]

woo, hot topic of debate!

Anyway, to throw in a couple more of my cents...

Some of these people are addicts. Some of these people, sadly, are mental patients who were released due to lack of funding and the mental hospital shut down. I can't tell you how many schizo's i've seen in obvious need of their medication. It's a terrible situation. Honestly. Junkie's are pitiable creatures, certainly.

But then.

Having encountered so many of these people who are just out of their mind insane, seeing people rolling around in filth because they just shot up, people who don't beg, people who just stand around on street corners all day trying to get in a fight, i honestly find it hard to feel sorry for most of them. Yeah, there are certainly a few out there who deserve my pity, who should be getting better than they are getting, but the vast majority of these people do not need safe injection sites. They need unsafe injection sites. They need a site where they can go and get the f*ck off the street and just die. I know it sounds heartless, and maybe it is, but the fact of it is, they are people without hope. It's sad, but true. there are people who wander around downtown all day begging for change. i have more respect for those guys than i do for the crackheads that never leave the streetcorner at Hastings and Main. They're all drug addicts, but at least some of them are begging. Some are too fucked to even do that. i'm betting they don't fuel their crack habits by any legal means, judging by the amount of car/bike thefts in the area.

The safe injection site won't encourage them to do more drugs. They don't need to be encouraged. an estimated 40% of them are HIV positive already from sharing needles, and i think 90% have Hepatitis C. They will not stop doing drugs, they will not quit until they die. A small portion of them will, of course, but the vast majority of these people.... honestly, they're barely human as it is. What the safe injection site will do is encourage the crackheads to stay in this part of town. They already have a firm hold on it, most people are honestly terrified to go through this neighborhood, and i don't blame them. It just frustrates me that my tax money goes towards keeping the junkies close to my work, instead of re-opening the mental hospital to put the majority of them back where they belong. (really, most of them are ex-mental patients who should never have been released).

blah. now i'm just rambling. it just makes me really mad to think that we're helping these idiots to get higher. the only plus i can see is less needles lying around on the street.

[sundaythedog]

They do not accept society...


Only because society does not accept them.

[Dregs]

woo, hot topic of debate!




Who are you and what have you done with the real Anita Blake? Just kidding. Its really hard to feel sorry for a smackhead esp. when they mug you and steal your car. To me its just another part of a society where being a complete fuckwit is tolerated.

[dark fuschia]

I tend to think it's someones choice if they wanna mess themselves up. Some people really have nothing. They really have no reason to get off the drugs, and no ones gonna give them one, so they should be allowed to get as screwed up as they want/can. BY the same token we need a much better support base for those who do want to get off them. Alot of these people are not only trying to get of drugs which makes them extremely sick but they are surviving by things like prostitution and drug dealing and crime, vicious cycles that are in themselves all very difficult to get out of even if a person wants to. I am interested to hear the SIR in Sydney doesn't work. Maybe a drug free safe house would be a far better investment, where they were allowed to stay as long as they wanted so long as they were drug free... maybe that would be a much better way of spending the money such a scheme probably uses.

[Amos]

From what I've seen and what people in the field have told me, that its not nearly as successful as people say it is. There is no significant difference in OD's brought into St Vincents, and nor would there be. OD'ing has very little to do with the location of where a smackie shoots up, but the quality of the drugs they are taking. Deaths have not been significantly lowered, because again, this relates to quality not location.

The safe injecting room do not use statistic on the hardcore users, those that shoot up anywhere anytime. These are the ones most likely to die, and least likely to use the room. All I can see the room doing is creating more hardcore users, but thats really a moot point, as they will eventually become hardcore users regardless of the exisitance of a safe place to shoot up.Interesting. Hehe, once again the media seems to have mis-informed me. But onwards anyhow..

Isolation sounds like an potential idea to me. Clearly nobody wants these people as a part of society, except their supliers I guess, so perhaps 'moving' the ones who don't want to quit somewhere out of the way like prison or an island until they die. Which seems a little cruel and would potentially violate human rights conventions. Killing them would be more efficient but it's not an idea that's going to be legislated any time soon I think. Plus if we did kill them all, their suppliers would probably look to others to sell their wares. It could end up extensively permeating another part of society and then we have a whole new bunch of smackheads roaming the streets.

I'm also very liberal thinking when it comes to drug use. But addictions are harmful to everybody, and I don't agree that highly addictive drugs should be available at all. Finding a way to make them non-addictive seems one way to go. Some clever scientist is bound to figure out how eventually. Then all that is needed is legalisation and booyah, good times for all interested, no profits for dodgy dealers. People can get high without getting addicted and without having to deal with criminals. Quality is almost guaranteed, or better in general at least, due to controls inevitably put in. Also easier to monitor people who are using it and stop porblems before they start. It's not perfect but hey, nothing is.

This should already have happened to marijuana of course. Thee are no identifiable addictive chemicals in it, but the government.. well I don't know what their fucking problem is. It's like prohibition, and it can't last.

[Anita Blake]

you know, about marijuana, i was thinking about the way it is illegal and people can go to jail and not travel to other countries and effectively have their lives destroyed if they are caught with it, and it occured to me that in the future, people will look back on our time and shake their heads, laughing. "Man, i can't believe they made it illegal to have in your possession a small quantity of a dried plant. that's too funny!!"

Seriously. It's a plant. that's been in use for thousands of years, medicinally, as well as in functional use, for making useful things like clothes, paper, ropes. That's like, i don't know, making aloe vera illegal. Or maybe willow trees. After all, if you were to grind up enough willow bark adn injest it, you could start getting high. Seriosuly, why hasn't someone thought to get this banned yet? This could be a rather serious detriment to our society.

:rolleyes:

[sir archely]

~goes in search of some willow trees~

Anyway, i haven't voted on this thing yet. I've never heard of a program like this before, and it's very interesting to hear what you all are saying about it. I do have a few questions though...

First, as i understand it, these things aren't really an effort to curtail the drug problem in the area, as some people seem to be saying. Isn't it more an acknowledgement that there IS a huge problem, and a method to prevent the spread of disease and drug debris as much as possible? I just hear a lot of you saying that you think that this is an effort to reduce the drug addicts in the street, or reduce their problem, but it doesn't sound like it really is.

If you have 50 smackheads shooting up in an area, and then set up a safe injection site. Say even 5 of those smackheads decide they want to use the site for shooting up. Doesn't that mean less 'private' use, less chance for needles to be laying around elsewhere? Even if those 5 don't use it exclusively, seems like it's better than it would have been without the safe place. The people are going to shoot up no matter what you do, so this seems better than nothing, if that's the option. Given that you can't just force people clean, it seems like you run out of options.

~shrug~

[edit: hmm...i said first, but now i can't remember what my second question was. oh well.]

[Amos]

you know, about marijuana, i was thinking about the way it is illegal and people can go to jail and not travel to other countries and effectively have their lives destroyed if they are caught with it, and it occured to me that in the future, people will look back on our time and shake their heads, laughing. "Man, i can't believe they made it illegal to have in your possession a small quantity of a dried plant. that's too funny!!"

Seriously. It's a plant. that's been in use for thousands of years, medicinally, as well as in functional use, for making useful things like clothes, paper, ropes. That's like, i don't know, making aloe vera illegal. Or maybe willow trees. After all, if you were to grind up enough willow bark adn injest it, you could start getting high. Seriosuly, why hasn't someone thought to get this banned yet? This could be a rather serious detriment to our society.

:rolleyes:
I wonder if it's possible to challenge the laws in court. There's no basis for their existence. And I certainly hope people do look back and laugh, Anita, because it's beyond a joke right now. According to the law nearly everyone I know is a low-down dirty criminal. All my friends definitely and my own mother and hell my grandmother too and everyone of my relatives who is old enough except my dad and my uncle. We should call ourselves the new zealand mafia. Dis-organised drug smokers. Call me Don Semaj, aka The Fool.

Hey, is that true about the willow trees?

[Anita Blake]

well, native americans used willow bark tea to cure headaches. We modern European types figured out how to extract the good stuff, make it chemically, and market it as aspirin, making billions of dollars off of it. I think you could get high if you took enough aspirin. i don't really know. honestly, i've never tried, and only thought of it as an example of a plant-drug that we use regularly and in fact endorse quite proudly.

and, yes, of course, you are right, arch, i think the goal of the SIS is to keep junkies safer than they would be sharing needles and flailing about in dumpsters. there's a chill-out room for the junkies to go to after they shoot up, and there is medical staff on premises. It's mostly about disease containment, i think, but honestly, i don't think there's much that can be done for most of the people i see on the street all the time. call me heartless.

[Fencing Fool]

I don't know about getting high, but taking enough aspirin can kill you or at least give you a really bad stomach ache. So, unless you like gasping in pain on the floor....... :umm:

As for safe injection rooms, it just seems like enabling an illegal action. Certainly, the problem won't go away on its own, but this isn't a good way of dealing with it. There really is no good answer. Putting them in prison is foolish, too. Too much of our country's work force is in prison already. There has to be something!

:mad: :(

[Anita Blake]

hmf. i'd be all for selling them bad drugs so they'd just die, that's probably be the best way to get drug usage down, if it becomes known that random drug doses are laced with, oh, say cyanide. But then again, i guess most people would freak out if the government suddenly said it was ok to kill junkies. In fact, i can say that, but i would freak out too if that happened. so, nevermind. it's just an idle thought. :dozey:

[sir archely]

As for safe injection rooms, it just seems like enabling an illegal action. Certainly, the problem won't go away on its own, but this isn't a good way of dealing with it. There really is no good answer. Putting them in prison is foolish, too. Too much of our country's work force is in prison already. There has to be something!



See...um...isn't this exactly what i was saying? it isn't supposed to "deal" with the problem of people being junkies. it's supposed to deal with the problem of rapid spread of disease due to reused needles, and drug stuff laying about in the streets. in which case, i'd say that it is an improvement over nothing. ~shrug~

[dark fuschia]

hmm breaking news on CNNNN last night...

"Pot smoker can't be bothered to campaign for legalisation"

tehehe

[~KA3AK~]

Was he suppored to run for CA governor?

[prophetic_joe]

Ok I'm a little late in getting involved with this topic but you opened this thread now you must listen to my opinion lol.

It's not that I don't feel sorry for drug users, cause in a way I do, but what the heck is the point of these sights? Ok let's take these people who aren't contributing anything positive to society and instead of helping them get better, and I understand sometimes it's not possible, let's give them more drugs so they can be high more often, live longer and cost people who are doing something good with thier lives more money. If the addicts have given up on life enough that they will never get better let alone don't really want to get better what really is the point of being alive? They aren't really alive anyway I mean sure they breathe and all that but are they really living. Oh and they go out and steal so they can afford to buy more drugs.

Ok so with that said sure I'm all for this while we're at it let's give all the murderers guns and bullets, all thieves the keys to our houses and put all child molestors in charge of daycares.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of any government thinking of do let alone actually doing.

[prophetic_joe]

originally posted by Sundaythedog
Only because society does not accept them.

Hmmm I think maybe them getting high and becoming junkies came a long time before this would have happened. And don't you think just maybe rehab centers and these safe injection sights are society's way of saying we still accept you and want you around. If they weren't accepted they'd be shipped off somewhere to die and as heartless as it is for some of them it would be the best thing we could do.

[dark fuschia]

I dunno, I've been seeing here alot people saying junkies aren't really alive and thats no sort of life to be living etc... In our society there are many people who aren't really living or contributing to society, say rich housewives and stuff, and then there are those that steal from society, corporate suits etc who thrive off the misery of others. As far as I am concerned by this defination, these people's lives are even more worthless than junkies. As it happens I don't believe in that definition and I think everyones life is worth quite a bit, even junkies. And it makes me sad that people see them as less than human, cos I know they aren't. If you guys knew how easy it is to fall that low you wouldn't be so cold.

[QuirkyTemplate]

ditto that.

[prophetic_joe]

Not being cold being realistic. Safe injection sights seem to me to be pretty much the end.a place where junkies go to live out their last days getting free drugs and clean needles. I totally agree with rehab centers, counciling, ect. but to me safe injection sights are a place for junkies who are never going to ever be rehabilitated to go and get high on taxpayer money, that in my eyes is a dumb idea. If we are going to spend money to do anything let it be to find ways to help junkies get better not higher.

Like I said are we going to spend government money to make it easier for murders to kill people? Whether we like it or not junkies are criminals too they steal and kill to get their drug money. So why are we going to help them so they can live longer and do this more?

And look at it this way what is more humane letting a junkie who will never get better die or giving them more drugs and keeping them alive longer in their obviously sad and painful state? Junkies are humans, humans that are in alot of pain and i personally don't think that giving them ways to live longer and prolong that pain is the humane thing to do I think that prolonging anyones pain is just plain cruel. Support people getting better not getting worse.

It's a double edged sword really it's just deciding which edges cut is going to cause more damage in the long run.

[Fencing Fool]

*pulls up in a fully decked out Spelling and Grammer Police car, lights flashing*

*whips out a megaphone*

Halt! You, prophetic_joe, are to be given warning for the incorrect use of the word sight. The correct definition of this word is as follows: The ability to see, or the act or fact of seeing. Given the context of your post, the correct word to use is site, meaning a location or area. THIS IS YOUR SECOND OFFENSE. Should you continue to use the incorrect terminology, your insolence will be duly reported to the newly appointed Chief Insolence Manager, who will then decided a fitting punishment, most likely involving a wet noddle. Have a nice day.

*drives off*

[Jennifer]

I dunno, I've been seeing here alot people saying junkies aren't really alive and thats no sort of life to be living etc... In our society there are many people who aren't really living or contributing to society, say rich housewives and stuff, and then there are those that steal from society, corporate suits etc who thrive off the misery of others. As far as I am concerned by this defination, these people's lives are even more worthless than junkies. As it happens I don't believe in that definition and I think everyones life is worth quite a bit, even junkies. And it makes me sad that people see them as less than human, cos I know they aren't. If you guys knew how easy it is to fall that low you wouldn't be so cold.

I don't think junkies are subhuman at all. They ARE human, and that's why they can take the responsibility of finding their own places to get clean needles and a fix. I believe they do need help, if they want it. I think they should get help with their addiction, if they want it. If they want to keep tearing up their veins and kill themselves slowly, then nothing is going to stop them from doing that. I've known people who were/are addicts, I could never view them as less than human because some of them were my friends. But they didn't expect me to give them a safe place to fix or to buy them needles at the pharmacy either.

Give them a place to heal, not a place that enables the addiction.

[prophetic_joe]

Halt! You, prophetic_joe, are to be given warning for the incorrect use of the word sight. The correct definition of this word is as follows: The ability to see, or the act or fact of seeing. Given the context of your post, the correct word to use is site, meaning a location or area. THIS IS YOUR SECOND OFFENSE. Should you continue to use the incorrect terminology, your insolence will be duly reported to the newly appointed Chief Insolence Manager, who will then decided a fitting punishment, most likely involving a wet noddle. Have a nice day.

Sorry, site, my deepest apologies. Give me a break though it's usually 3 or 4 am when I post and I am very tired.

However, if they were called safe injection SIGHTS that really would make it a stupid idea right?

By the way I like noodles alot lol. Italian food is your friend.

[~KA3AK~]

For me the bottom line of this whole discussion is how well do Safe Injection Sites work. If they would help to reduce the spread of diseases among junkies while not increasing the number of drung users, then I'll probably be for it.

[Molimo]

People are getting the wrong idea about these sites. They're not meant to really help people with their habits. They're just meant to stop the use of dirty needles (and thus slow the spread of AIDS and a few other nasty diseases). As has been mentioned- these people have to volunteer to get cured (an addiction IS a disease), and most of them won't, so why not make it less dangerous anyway?

[Speed_of_Mind]

Anyway, what do people think about this idea, these safe injection sites? This is the first place of it's kind on north america, so it's rather experimental. Lots of people think it's a great idea. Me, i think they'd be better off actually arresting these people and putting them up on drug charges and forcing them clean. It'd probably cost the same amount, and be better for everyone involved.


I think it's better than the alternative, which is to NOT have safe injection sites. They're there for a reason and I'm glad Vancouver is progressive enough that they're willing to try something new.

Heroin and drug addiction is a tough thing to counter. Imagine if the cops had that kind of power that they could just lock people up for solely USING drugs. You would be in jail right now for a simple lifestyle choice of yours. You could be abscent of all of the rights you enjoy. Think about how slippery the slope could be for our balanced way of life if we simply locked up any one who annoyed us.