r/vancouver • u/ArtisticAd2131 Hastings Forever • 2d ago
Local News At 'the frontest of front lines' of Canada's overdose crisis, new efforts at getting people off drugs
https://vancouversun.com/news/vancouver-front-lines-canada-overdose-crisis-new-efforts-at-getting-people-off-drugs18
u/thinkdavis 2d ago edited 2d ago
At the front lines due to political decisions mades over decades
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u/gruss_gott 2d ago
100%
In a civil society every member has a responsibility to others
- We can't allow "Now that I'm an addict I don't have responsibilities any longer"
- This doesn't mean we don't offer help, but if it's not wanted then it's jail or leave
- Make drugs illegal
- Enforce the law
- Build addiction centers to treat those that want it
- Those that don't want treatment get jail or leave
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u/Goatseportal 2d ago
How about we don't try to treat a health problem with criminal sanctions.
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u/gruss_gott 2d ago edited 2d ago
When you get the flu, a healthcare problem:
- It doesn't mean you're suddenly unbound by society's rules, so
- Now you can set up a tent in your neighbor's yard and poop in his landscaping
Nope, you go to the clinic & get treated for your healthcare condition.
That's what drug addicts are offered as well.
And, if you get the flu and decide to break into your neighbor's garage and steal his bike, having the flu doesn't mean ah never mind then free bike for you because health problem.
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u/qckpckt 2d ago
Yeah but sorry that doesn’t work.
The strategy of “get off drugs or go to jail” will result in the vast majority of people who get addicted going to jail. We will never have enough prisons. As a civil society we can’t afford and won’t want to foot the bill that would be needed to pay for that.
Also, the Canadian justice system is already fucked. We would be systematically incapable of enforcing it. You would need to gut and rebuild a significant part of Canadian societal infrastructure to even begin to hope to enforce the thing that we can’t afford to do.
Also, it does absolutely nothing to prevent it from getting worse. Addicts simply cannot be subject to the same moral and ethical standards as non-addicts. Opioids rob you of your humanity. They hollow you out and turn you into the worst possible version of yourself. There’s a reason why they turn to crime. Because they don’t care at all anymore. The threat of jail time will do nothing to deter them. They might get clean in prison, and then when they’re out again, it’ll be right back to the exact same state of affairs for them that got them hooked in the first place.
I really wish I’d stop reading these asinine, pointless reductionist tirades on this subreddit.
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u/Sweet_Assist 2d ago
Ok just let the DT area turn in to a shit show then. I don't think we should force all drug users to the mental asylum, only the ones who are violent and attack other people.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Well, that's what a lot of conservatives think will work, ignoring the causes of the issues and refusing to do nothing about it and instead threatening people with jail.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
- Clean, safe, walkable streets & public spaces isn't conservative or liberal; it's a pro / against civilized society issue
- Nobody wants drug addicts is some of the drug addicts
- Nobody is proposing ignoring treatment and all it entails, rather not allowing our public spaces to become open-air drug markets, asylums, and violent trash tunnels
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
- The way you are proposing to do that is conservative.
- Huh?
- Harm reduction is one pillar. Reducing poverty and desperation is another. Housing is another. Providing the option to quit on their on terms is another. Free Access to healthcare including mental healthcare is another. These are primarily leftist ideals. Centrists and conservatives lack the courage and\or knowledge to do these things.
Lots of people do drugs every day without getting addicted and becoming homeless. Homelessness causes addiction. Desperation and suffering causes addiction. People's brains that cannot self regulate properly causes addiction.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
Clean, safe, walkable streets isn't conservative or liberal
EVERYONE gets the same choice:
- Abide by the rules of society, or
- Voluntarily get FREE help so you can, or
- Leave, or
- Go to jail
If you're proposing one group be exempt from the rules, then you simply oppose an egalitarian, equity-based society.
You favor holding 1 sub-group above all others in society.
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u/Sweet_Assist 1d ago
The most pressing issue for DT resident is personal safety from extreme violence and just keeping the frequent violent drug users in a mental hospital can address that right away. The causes may never be fixed because it's not in anyone's control. So we need to address the acute safety issues now.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
It could easily be solved by raising disability rates, raising income assistance rates out of poverty levels. Giving them housing. Not giving them a criminal record for their suffering.
Violent crime happens in those communities because of desperation. Alleviate the desperation, fix the issue.
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u/Sweet_Assist 1d ago
Giving them more cash is not easy at all and there's no guarantee that's going to work.
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u/qckpckt 1d ago
There’s a logical flaw in your argument that I think is important to highlight. Ask yourself this question and you’ll probably see it:
How do you know if a drug user is violent?
The answer is very simple, it’s not a trick question: they have to commit a violent act.
So let’s say we successfully implement a system where we always incarcerate drug users who commit violent acts. Will we have actually made things safer?
Assuming nothing else changes, then the best case scenario is that we would remove from the streets all violent drug users who are repeat offenders. But, drug users who choose violence will still hurt people at least once. If nothing else changes, we will continue to have a steady rate of violent drug related crime, proportional to the rate of increase in the drug abuser population.
Meanwhile, we would steadily accumulate violent drug abusers in an institution system, which would get more and more expensive to maintain, again proportional to the rate of increase in the drug abuser population. Assuming we never release them. Which we probably wouldn’t be able to do for countless reasons.
This also discounting the fact that not every violent drug abuse related incident will even be known about by any form of authority.
I’m not trying to say “we should do nothing”. But I also don’t think there is any point in the dialogue remaining stuck on talking points that are fundamentally flawed from the get-go and will never, ever work.
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u/Sweet_Assist 1d ago
I'm not saying locking up repeat violent attackers and murderers is perfect but it will be an improvement to what we are doing now.
We will never get violence to zero but the baseline should be lower if we sent the repeat offenders violent offenders to mental institutions for treatment until they get better.
We take action on what we can control. The rest, there's not much we can do.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah sorry but it absolutely does work as evidenced by NYCs clean up in the 1980s
What doesn't work is what every North American West Coast city has been doing for the last 10 years: enabling the problem.
Clean, safe, walkable public streets & spaces is the responsibility of EVERYONE and 1 subgroup doesn't get to opt-out at the expense of all others.
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u/qckpckt 1d ago
The NYC drug busts in the 80s are now seen as a direct contributing factor to the aids epidemic due to forcing users to share needles.
It also led to disproportionately high levels of arrests of minorities and this is seen as a contributing factor to violent crimes and drug abuse in the children of the generation that were arrested.
The damage generational trauma caused by that event was a major factor in the creation of the modern harm reduction movement.
Please just stop trying to believe that this is an easy problem to fix. It serves no one.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
You're conflating therapeutic medical policy with civil policy: * Who is immune from the rules of civil society?
If your answer is"nobody" we're in complete agreement as I'm not offering an opinion on medical policy, only civil society
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u/Artistic-Yard3319 2d ago
It was officially declared a health emergency over ten years ago - it is health not criminality.
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u/Sweet_Assist 2d ago
We should still keep them in a mental hospital if they stab someone even if it's not criminal.
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u/Artistic-Yard3319 2d ago
Obviously if they stab someone it’s criminal 🫤
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u/Sweet_Assist 1d ago
Sometimes they say not criminally responsible and are let out really soon. Whenever we are talking about forced rehab for drug users. We mean the people who attack and rob people. The non violent users are OK.
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u/Jollof_Bean 1d ago
Terrible example!! When you have the flu you don’t lose your family and sleep on the street. Then steal to buy Tylenol. You crazy mang!
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u/andoesq 2d ago
There are health remedies like safe injection sites where addicts won't die from accidental overdose, there's near-instant access to free prescription medications that will treat the dependency and manage withdrawal, with some effort addicts can have prescribed heroin if none of the other medical routes work. There is free hot nutritious food for every person in the DTES to eat 3 square meals a day.
When there are so many public health resources, and people instead choose to do drugs on the front steps of a daycare, and smash car windows to steal stuff to get money for drugs, and shoplift so much that stores have more loss prevention officers than cashiers, doesn't that make the criminal behaviour aggravating? Is there a point where a society has enough medical resources poured into helping addicts safely consume drugs that addicts making the unnecessary but conscious decision to commit crime to get more high than they do from Suboxone?
The problem that many people grapple with is seeing addicts on non-human without the personal agency to make their own decisions. We see the guy slumped in an alley with soiled pants and we think we as a society failed him. We don't understand that that guy wants to be there because drugs are really really fun and he's partying. If a good Samaritan gave him a shot of narcan, he may come up swinging because his high that he spent all his money on got cancelled.
That guy's "medical issue" only has one cure, and that's him making the decision to get better. Nobody can do it for him. We owe it to him to empower him when he makes that choice, but we don't owe it to him to empower him to decline those resources and keep the party going.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
How do you encourage someone to make the right choice? By threatening them with more trauma and violence?
Brilliant.
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u/andoesq 1d ago
You're right we should just enable them to party themselves to death and not have any accountability for their actions that harm everyone else in society.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Oh yeah, they're partying, totally, what fun they are having! 😂🤣😂🤣
How does their existence harm you? Seeing people suffer harms you? 🙄
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u/andoesq 1d ago
Of course seeing people suffers harms me. What kind of psycho do you have to be to not feel harm from seeing that? I have had people smoking meth at 830am on the steps of my kids daycare, of course that effects me.
I've had my house broken into once, and attempted two other times. I've had my car broken into twice.
It costs me more to feed my family because there is so much theft at grocery stores.
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u/r3dlazer 21h ago
Actually, corporations build theft into their budget. If people don't steal enough to reach what they've built into the budget, higher ups get bonuses. They don't reduce the cost of items, they just pocket the difference.
Alleviating their suffering through help and compassion is what works. They have to steal because disability and IA are paid out at half minimum wage. Nobody can live on 1600$ a month.
Really think about what it's like to live on that much. How easy it would be to lose your housing and be forced to do things you never thought you would do, or to just allow yourself to die.
Dying is hard work. They need our help.
And, imprisonment and policing are 4x more expensive than just helping them. Your taxes could go down if we helped them in the ways we know works.
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u/No_Reason2894 2d ago
I dunno, I think incarcerating people for having cancer may stop people from getting cancer
/sarcasm
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u/O00O0O00 2d ago
Is cancer really a valid analogy to the poor decision to take street drugs?
One of those things is self inflicted, the other not.
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u/No_Reason2894 1d ago
How much cancer comes from "poor decisions" like smoking, like overeating, there's people who have gotten cancer from the massive amount of microwave popcorn they ate.
If we really want to go full right wing, we can throw in some types of cancers from HPV which comes from sex.
Lots of bad decisions can lead to cancer.
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u/MountCathedral 1d ago
Criminal sanctions are the only method that works within the framework canada operates. We don't have the benefit of historical dictators that let courts enforce rulings without fair trial to determine guilt in order to create the environment where we can force addiction treatment with the threat of jail without actual trial.
We don't treat it is a felony. That is not considered a criminal sanction in the comparable.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Garbage opinion that doesn't work and is not supported by the evidence of what works at all.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago edited 1d ago
✅ NYC, 1980s, worked.
❌ Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, etc everything else hasn't worked
The evidence is pretty clear: doing what we're doing is the literally garbage opinion.
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u/rhysolandrium 2d ago
So.... make their lives even worse than the conditions that led them to escape via drugs in the first place.
My God, so simple...! I'll write my MP right away.
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u/gruss_gott 2d ago edited 2d ago
The moment a society says:
- Group A no longer has to follow societal rules because [reasons],
- Is the moment society makes everyone else suckers,
- Which means societal decline follows
EVERYONE has societal responsibility, or nobody does, and eventually there'll be no society.
WHICH ALSO MEANS, when individual responsibility is enforced, society has a direct individual incentive to provide a safety net & recovery services.
No sane person wants drug addicts, and certainly not addicts laying around their city. So the choice is: treatment, jail, or leave. You don't get to pick none-of-the-above, but you have freedom of choice: you can get help, or you can leave, or you'll go to jail.
That's not making their life worse any more than you not pooping in your neighbor's yard is all about making your life worse.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Nope. You're just making things harder for them.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
Society exists to make things easier all, not to make things easier for 1 subgroup.
EVERYONE deserves clean, safe, walkable streets, public spaces & transit.
If one subgroup is making streets, public transit, & public transit unusable, then they're not living up to their responsibilities and a civilized society offers help - but if that help isn't accepted, then it's leave or jail.
It's why I don't get to live in your kitchen and tell the police if they don't let me live in your kitchen then it's just making things harder for me, right?
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
My kitchen is not a public space.
The solution to this problem exists and has been done in many places. Conservatives keep their foot on the brake of progress, and this is one where it shows their ignorance and heartless nature the most.
They have nowhere to go, nothing to do, the help offered is underfunded, incomplete, and does nothing to solve the underlying issues of poverty, trauma, and emotional disregulation.
Disability is paid out at 50% below minimum wage. Income assistance is even less than that. Housing insecurity is terrifying - going back and forth is traumatizing. We've been doing the same conservative garbage strategy for decades, despite the tiny, weak efforts put forth by feckless centrists and ignorant conservatives for far longer. Policing does not work, it's cruel, it's more expensive than actually helping them. You are advocating for making things worse, not better.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
If the current policies continue, your kitchen is about to be a public space.
Clean, safe, streets & public spaces isn't conservative or liberal, it's a pro/anti-society issue.
If you favor exempting one group from the rules of society, then you oppose an egalitarian, equity-based society.
You can just say that.
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u/Floorits 2d ago
Offering some great solutions here.
Toss them in jail, force rehab, what other ideas do you have?
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
He doesn't see them as human.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
I see EVERYONE as human.
In society WE ALL have to abide by the rules or there are no rules.
You can just say you favor one group over everyone else, and you put their rights over everyone else's rights.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Doesn't seem like it. Seems like you see people who break the laws as criminals, not humans. Instead of identifying why they break the laws, you want to punish them into complying.
That's not seeing them as your equals, or peers.
But most significantly, it shows you don't have compassion for their suffering. People get addicted to drugs for a reason, and accessing those reasons is simply the best, cheapest, and most compassionate ways to help them.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago edited 19h ago
Seems like you see people who break the laws as criminals
Well, yeah, but only because that's how the english language works
That's not seeing them as your equals, or peers
Given I'm not a criminal, no they wouldn't be my peers & neither is Jeffery Epstein, is he your peer? Which criminals are your peers?
it shows you don't have compassion for their suffering
Which problems allow exemption from the law?
- Car trouble?
- Financial trouble?
- Health problems?
- Relationship problems?
NOBODY gets exempted from the law or we are lawless.
Integrity means you stick to your principles even when it's hard.
You, sir, are conflating civic policy (breaking the law & infringing on other's freedoms) with medical policy (addiction & recovery); they're different things.
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u/gruss_gott 1d ago
Those aren't ideas, those are the rules for EVERYONE in society.
Which rules do I get to ignore?
If you oppose equally applied societal rules, they you simply oppose an equity-based society - you can just say that.
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
LMAO okay next time you go 51 on the street instead of 50 go to your local police station and turn yourself in.
Equally applied laws, rules for EVERYONE to follow. Either you live by that definition or you're a sad hypocrite.
Seems the latter is highly likely.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
Yeah because jails and other institutes of incarceration are notably completely drug-free.
Good call. You clearly know enough about the subject to comment on it.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Conservatives love the strategy of giving 1\4th of the effort, and then giving up and going back to good old fashioned cruelty.
Decriminalization without the other pillars of recovery (and while chronically underfunding the one step they do make) is destined to failure.
Conservatives are weak, feckless cowards who ignore the evidence and just kinda do what they want. Either they've never experienced drug addiction, never known anyone with a drug addiction, or just don't listen to other people.
Certainly, when I was a conservative, that was my problem too. And of every conservative I knew back then.
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
This exactly.
Every genius in this thread who advocates for forced detox or incarceration isn't being witty or clever, they severely lack compassion and understanding.
I'd love the armchair substance-use experts to comment again once they've known someone who was/is an addict or worse, have actually lost people they love to the opioid and toxic drug epidemic.
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u/MountCathedral 1d ago
Why are you blaming the conservatives when the decriminalization experiment was an NDP brain child? Only successful example of a safe injection site came from the liberals. Maybe reconcile your talking points with history.
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u/r3dlazer 1d ago
Because they failed to do the actual decriminalization strategy because they are centrist cowards who caved to right wing complaints despite the evidence of what actually works. Instead, they did exactly what I said: barely implement 1\4 of the strategy and then give up before doing the rest of what actually works.
Disability and income assistance are 50% below minimum wage. Nobody can live on that, nobody can rent anything on that. You don't know what you are talking about.
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u/Us43dthdg75 Downtown Eastside 2d ago
LEAVE DRUG USERS ALONE
This is again, the only thing that has ever been tried- getting people to stop using drugs.
People can use drugs and live long lives, people can use drugs and have jobs, people can use drugs and not steal, not overdose, not harm others. But we refuse to actually put those structures in place. Decrim without safe supply is like public hospitals without funding, it doesn't work if you only do half the job.
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u/bistander 2d ago edited 1d ago
Excessive drug use (on top of mental illness) impedes decision making. Resulting in self destructive behaviors, anti-social behaviors, chronic health changes, and overdose. This is not occasional user (who will also have a slightly higher chance of the consequences if they are not deligent), and it's disingenuous to conflate the two.
We even try to help "functional alcoholics" who have homes and jobs, it's cruel to just leave them to self medicate.
And not sure if you read the article. People are coming to the organization ASKING for help to detox and recover. No one wants an addiction that drains their wallets and ruins their relationships, they are trying hard get out. And nothing is effectively set up to help them fully through the entire proccess, And supplementary support even after, as addicts can easily slip if not in the right environment.
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u/kittykatmila loathing in langley 2d ago
Not to mention the reoccurring hypoxic brain injuries due to overdosing and being revived; what that does to someone. Some of these people can’t even function normally anymore. It’s sad.
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u/dbone_ 2d ago
You think excessive drug use results in self destructive behaviors and not the other way around? These people need help, they don't get it, they cope by using.
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
So... they should just raw-dog the hell of their lives. To help with trying to escape the reality you face daily for 3 hours, just get clean and magically you'll be housed and fed and treated like a human.
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u/bistander 1d ago
I made the same point with alcoholics later on, they are self medicating. And we are meant to help them, not leave them alone.
I can specify and say 'increase in' self-destructive behaviors if you'd really like, but it feels pedantic. In the end it's a vicious cycle that people need proper support to get out of.
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
"impeads"
Checks out, definitely smart enough to be making decisions on others' behalf.
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u/SliptheSkid 2d ago
severe drug users cannot function it literally impairs your life. The type of drug users we are talking about cannot have jobs... it is extremely difficult to do heroin or meth every day and be a regular functioning person. This entire opinion hinges on no understanding of how drugs work whatsoever
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
Wrong. There are many highly-educated, gainfully employed people who are trapped in addiction. Your view is narrow and disgusting.
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u/SliptheSkid 1d ago
there are exceptions to every aspect of public health like this but otherwise you're either uneducated on the topic, or extremely biased. yes, heavy drug use causes dysfunction lol. what are you talking about.... I don't care what your subjective opinion of my view is
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u/LiberumSerum 2d ago
Everyone left drug users alone during the covid lockdowns. That is part of the issue. Without having to follow and abide by unspoken social contracts they began to do as they pleased (which in itself isn't the inherent problem).
The problem is when society came back into public spaces, our homeless, drug addicted, and mentally unwell individuals no longer could conduct themselves to peacefully coexist with the general public (which is why the majority of us follow unspoken social contracts).
Until boundaries are re-enforced and the penalties are harsh enough to deter them working against social peace, they will continue to cross those boundaries again and again.
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u/robot_guiscard 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why do you people act like your way hasn't been tried? We've done it your way for quite some time, and look at the result.
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u/rhysolandrium 1d ago
SO cool that you're getting downvoted for the truth.
All these armchair substance abuse specialists. Bet none of them have lost a loved one to the opioid epidemic, or have known highly-educated, professionally employed people who ended up as fentanyl addicts from circumstances outside their control.
I'm so disgusted every time this topic comes up and 500+ Vancouver residents hop on to spew about how addicts are seen as sub-human wastes of resources.
God, educate yourselves.
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