Philly- safe injection site for opiod users

[HemiHawk]

Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
Almost every study ever conducted of programs such as "wet houses" where homeless people are allowed to store booze and drink, or in programs like in Portugal where heroin is given to addicts under strict supervision, etc, shows a huge decrease in overall taxpayer costs from reduced interventions by medical and security services. But ignorance, and knee-jerk assumptions, are bliss...

BTW, drug and alcohol use actually plummet as well...


this^^^.

But I can't see that as becoming a policy as it would actually reduce overall government spending and shift the cash flows away from law enforcement and prison industry. It's easier to label it as "enabling" and retain the current situation.


And the powers that be can't stand it... There are unions and committees fighting to keep drugs illegal and help private prisons. At the same time big pharma is lobbying to keep pot illegal... Hmm I wonder why... Follow the money.

I'd recommend a documentary on netflix "prescription thugs". It goes through some of the issues.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Smokescreen
People do drugs because they are fundamentally deficient in some area of their lives. Whether it's connection with others, with a supreme being or a general purpose in life, etc. If we really wanted to rehabilitate addicts we would look to treat the cause. Of course the addict would have to want to be rehabilitated to make a complete life change...and then, like an alcoholic stay away from drugs the remainder of their lives.


Right, because that's how the most populous nation on earth has suddenly turned into a nation of addict because the entire nation is fundamentally deficient. Not because it is the biggest easy money to be made ever.

Look, the reason recreational drugs and alcohol are around is because it is good money to be made in it. During time of war illegal drug sales are the easiest way to obtain funding. The whole Afghan, Northern Thailand, Columbia, etc are growing because the funding leads to militia. We did that too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking

If you want to stop drug addicts, it has to stop the cash flow, and sometimes let the addicts die or execute them if they don't quit are the most efficient but unfortunate way to deal with it.

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted By: andyd
Just about anything done to mitigate the opiod crisis is a bandaid. The root cause is the destruction of the family by caused by the need for both adults to work outside the home to support the family. All the couples who have children, then divorce. A child raised by a single parent, often is raised in poverty. Yah, yah, people change and that sweet young thing, you made babies with is no longer any fun to live with. Too bad, you played, now you pay. When you have children, it is your responsibility to nurture and raise them. Not leave them to raised in poverty just because you and your partner fell out of love.

As for the opiod crisis, read Hillbilly Elegy



You're barking up the wrong tree. Some of the worst drug addicts I have ever known came from wealth and a stable two parent household. Drug addiction knows no demographic, as neither does substance abuse in general.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Philly who would have ever guessed?

 

[eyeofthetiger]

Originally Posted By: JohnnyJohnson
Philly who would have ever guessed?


I would have guessed safe sites for consuming cheese steaks.

 

[dishdude]

One thing's clear - the current "war on drugs" isn't working. It's time to try something else.

 

[spasm3]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
One thing's clear - the current "war on drugs" isn't working. It's time to try something else.


I find it interesting that when a family enlists an interventionist, they are usually a former user. They almost always have the family stop enabling, not allow them in the home anymore, cut off all non earned sources of income, phones etc, to get them to rock bottom to get them in treatment.

But somehow thats not an option when they are living off the public. Why would it work for families but not for those on public assistance?

 

[Alfred_B]

Originally Posted By: spasm3
Originally Posted By: dishdude
One thing's clear - the current "war on drugs" isn't working. It's time to try something else.


I find it interesting that when a family enlists an interventionist, they are usually a former user. They almost always have the family stop enabling, not allow them in the home anymore, cut off all non earned sources of income, phones etc, to get them to rock bottom to get them in treatment.

But somehow thats not an option when they are living off the public. Why would it work for families but not for those on public assistance?


Because it doesn't work the way you described it. What you described is the myth. More info:

https://drugabuse.com/library/drug-intervention-programs/

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted By: UberArchetype
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
That's the rub right there. There isn't a solution.

That's quite the defeatist POV. Actually solving problems involves tracing them to their source, among other things. But nobody wants to admit the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest single factor poisoning our society right now - everything from peddling drugs to consumers on TV to insanely expensive cancer chemo drugs that don't work.

Opiates are just the currently obvious problem.


Show me a pharmaceutical company that makes heroin.

 

[Alfred_B]

Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
Originally Posted By: UberArchetype
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
That's the rub right there. There isn't a solution.

That's quite the defeatist POV. Actually solving problems involves tracing them to their source, among other things. But nobody wants to admit the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest single factor poisoning our society right now - everything from peddling drugs to consumers on TV to insanely expensive cancer chemo drugs that don't work.

Opiates are just the currently obvious problem.


Show me a pharmaceutical company that makes heroin.

you have no idea how addiction works, do you?

 

[PimTac]

Another side effect of enabling are areas becoming no go zones. City parks in our area are only used by addicts and dealers and perverts. Regular people get mugged. Certain parts of downtown turn into addict ghettos after dark. A normal living person never goes into these areas.

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted By: spasm3
Originally Posted By: dishdude
One thing's clear - the current "war on drugs" isn't working. It's time to try something else.


I find it interesting that when a family enlists an interventionist, they are usually a former user. They almost always have the family stop enabling, not allow them in the home anymore, cut off all non earned sources of income, phones etc, to get them to rock bottom to get them in treatment.

But somehow thats not an option when they are living off the public. Why would it work for families but not for those on public assistance?


The gold standard for drug treatment is a single digit percentage number. Literally nobody does better than sending more than 90% of their clients out to go use drugs again.

They use former junkies, because only a junky can understand a junkie. You or I don't have a chance in hades at talking to junkies, let alone changing their ways.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
Almost every study ever conducted of programs such as "wet houses" where homeless people are allowed to store booze and drink, or in programs like in Portugal where heroin is given to addicts under strict supervision, etc, shows a huge decrease in overall taxpayer costs from reduced interventions by medical and security services. But ignorance, and knee-jerk assumptions, are bliss...

BTW, drug and alcohol use actually plummet as well...


Agreed...rather than knee jerk talks of taxpayer funding and enabling, do a little research on places that HAVE these facilities.

One has been running in Sydney fr decades, and I felt exactly like many of the posters in the thread at the time.

And with the passage of time, I realise that I was wrong.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sydney-injecting-room-a-success-pm

The Sydney one is run off the proceeds of crime, and managed by a church group..

The visitors have to provide their own drugs, no-one does that for them, but they have medical services and clean needles.

Those that now live long enough to seek rehab, cn do it with less chance of getting AIDS or hepatitus, and the prostitutes who are using that means to fund their habits are "cleaner" as a result.

Boxing day, a family was killed by a guy in "rehab" driving back from a methadone clinic...I know where I'd rather he had been that day.

 

[Smokescreen]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: Smokescreen
People do drugs because they are fundamentally deficient in some area of their lives. Whether it's connection with others, with a supreme being or a general purpose in life, etc. If we really wanted to rehabilitate addicts we would look to treat the cause. Of course the addict would have to want to be rehabilitated to make a complete life change...and then, like an alcoholic stay away from drugs the remainder of their lives.


Right, because that's how the most populous nation on earth has suddenly turned into a nation of addict because the entire nation is fundamentally deficient. Not because it is the biggest easy money to be made ever.

Look, the reason recreational drugs and alcohol are around is because it is good money to be made in it. During time of war illegal drug sales are the easiest way to obtain funding. The whole Afghan, Northern Thailand, Columbia, etc are growing because the funding leads to militia. We did that too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking

If you want to stop drug addicts, it has to stop the cash flow, and sometimes let the addicts die or execute them if they don't quit are the most efficient but unfortunate way to deal with it.


What nation is that..China? So the entire nation is addicted to drugs...seriously? IF that were the case then yes...the entire nation really is fundamentally deficient.

Money made from drugs, alcohol, prostitution and other crimes are as old as time. Yes, you can try to follow the money but there will always be ways to work around it and continue to feed the deficiency...unless you live in a pure dictatorship and have stormtroopers enforcing the death penalty for such crimes. Corrupt government law enforcement only "buy in" because they have morally deficient members within. Only the morally deficient would feel that money is better than meaningful human relationships.

I have purpose, I have meaningful human interaction with a loving family. I never feel the need to do drugs, nor drink alcohol, or other vices. Not only that, but partaking those items would cause me to lose things I hold dear. So I would have no part of it, not even for all the money in the world. There are those that share the values I do and for them there is no market for drugs alcohol and other vices in their lives either.

If there was no deficiency there would be no market.

 

[bubbatime]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Originally Posted By: UberArchetype
Why solve problems when we can use them to stimulate the economy treating symptoms? Think of all the jobs and money spent running the injection sites.


That's the rub right there. There isn't a solution.

Losing the "War" on drugs has changed a lot of policies.


Actually there is a solution. Legalize any and all drugs. Everything. Set up govt labs where opiod drugs are created CHEAP. Mass distribute these drugs to every pharmacy in the country. Anyone can come in and buy, without a prescription, as much drugs as they want. $5 for 30 pills or 10 prefilled syringes for heroin users.

Fixed.

Most crime plummets over night (murder, robberies, burglaries, property crimes, aggravated batteries, assaults) On the contrary, DUI and public nuisance calls will increase, unfortunately.

50% of prisons could be emptied out overnight (drug convictions) Saving the tax payers literally billions and billions of dollars.

Thousands of drug addicts will kill themselves off daily in overdoses. Good riddance. Win, win. The more drug addicts that kill themselves, the better. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. You cant fix these people. They are broken, just like a rabid dog, and they need to be removed from society. I'd give everyone of them a huge dose of fentanyl right now if I could.

 

[DoubleWasp]

This assumes a drug user goes, goes quietly, and leaves no collateral damage.

Likely? Not really.

 

[andyd]

Back in the early 1830s, China lost the opium wars to the British and other European countries and by the 1930s, it was estimated that a third of Chiang Kai Shek's officer corps were addicts. The Brits raised poppies in India and forced the Chinese to open trade. Substitute big Pharma for the British East Asia Company

 

[OVERKILL]

The problem has the potential to solve itself with these most recent strains of Fentanyl. People in BC were dying in droves from this stuff. You eliminate the client base, the supply serves no purpose and those people will move on to something else.

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

Anybody interested in this topic owes it to themselves to read Dreamland by Sam Quinones.

It's a fascinating and comprehensive exploration of how pharmaceutical opiates became such an epidemic. Once people got good and hooked and could no longer afford the likes of Oxycontin, many turned to heroin, which was cheaper and readily available because a specific network of dealers had stepped in with an almost perfect business plan.

Unfortunately, he doesn't say as much about solutions. But understanding the problem and who it affects is an important place to start. The writing is also good, for those who care about such things.

Author's Website

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
The problem has the potential to solve itself with these most recent strains of Fentanyl. People in BC were dying in droves from this stuff. You eliminate the client base, the supply serves no purpose and those people will move on to something else.


Yes, they move onto other drugs.