[romanP]

ridenrain ridenrain:

Boo hoo boo. I'm a drunk. Will the state buy me some nice Irish whisky?

Sure, as soon as you can inject whiskey with a dirty needle, and whiskey becomes instantly addictive to just about everyone that touches it.

$1:

Vanouver leads the country and is very close for worst property crimes so addicts can make money to buy illegal drugs.

I'm sure you'll claim that English is your first language, but you're not very good at it. What the hell is this line of utter nonsense? Did you run it through the Google translator first or something?

$1:

Drug dealers now have a steady and state sponsored market for their illegal product.

Drug dealers have gained nothing. As was explained to you repeatedly the last time this subject came up, safe injection sites have proven to successfully counter about 30% of addictions that are treated at such a site. As usual, the opponents of safe injection sites are without both wits and facts, and rely solely on superstition and and unreasonable clinging to authority.

[romanP]

herbie herbie:

We could buy all the opium in Afghanistan for half what we spend playing 'war'.

This would actually not be a bad idea, if you didn't preface and conclude it with selling heroin to addicts at clinics. It would give Afghan farmers more incentive to grow food crops instead of drug crops.

[PluggyRug]

No such thing as a safe injection.

More taxpayer money directed at drug pushers. This idiocy is being pushed to it's extreme.

[romanP]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

No such thing as a safe injection.

More taxpayer money directed at drug pushers. This idiocy is being pushed to it's extreme.

No drugs are sold at safe injection sites. Please respond when you are armed with facts.

[Freakinoldguy]

"Harm Reduction" my ass, the whole thing is an oxymoron, used to try and baffle the general public by a group of so called "caring" people, who would rather enable addicts to continue their self destructive behaviour than to actually force them into rehab and a chance at survival.

I guess it gives these people a cause to champion and someone to look down upon.

As for harm reduction. Go ask anyone who lives in Vancouvers East End just how safe they feel with all the breakins and drug deals going on around or near the government funded shooting gallery?

Harm reduction isn't for the public it's for the addict so he doesn't get a disease, die, or cost the health care system large. Screw the public seems to be the mantra of the day. They're supposed to suck it up and smile when they're assaulted, get tax increases for extra policing or have their homes broken into, by some drug crazed maniac.

Mandatory rehab and extremely large prison sentences for dealers, seems to be the only way to stop this cycle of insanity.

[Wally_Sconce]

romanP romanP:

Aging_Redneck Aging_Redneck:

most canadians agree that drugs and drug abuse are at the top of the list of concerns for anyone that is concerned about the crime rates in their neighborhood.

throw the f#cking addicts, and pushers into jail. Society would be better off without them.

I disagree. Society would be better off without incompassionate morons like yourself who think people are not people just because they got into a situation that caused them to make a bad choice.

I can't believe we have to have this same stupid argument all over again because some people are just too fickle and thickheaded and refuse to learn about anything if the law declares it bad. Here's some news for you: the law is not always right. In fact, the law can be utterly, maddeningly wrong. In the case of safe injection sites, some people consider it more important to follow the rule of law than to help people who can barely help themselves. Such people have fucked up priorities, and have an addiction of their own - an addiction to authority without reason.

Well, if I try and look at this very seriously. I would say that what you are saying is good, provided that you can convince me that giving drugs to a drug addict is compassionate. especially the hard core drugs that they are speaking of. You don't become an addict of these drugs without knowing someone that has die of it....and I don't think its a casual decision to be passing it out like fucking popcorn.

[Zipperfish]

Legalize them all. Then you wouldn't need a safe injection site.

[PluggyRug]

romanP romanP:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

No such thing as a safe injection.

More taxpayer money directed at drug pushers. This idiocy is being pushed to it's extreme.

No drugs are sold at safe injection sites. Please respond when you are armed with facts.

Please!?

I did not say that. Please respond when you have the ability of interpretation.

Idiots harmed with "clean" needles are still idiots. My (as a taxpayer) money is being spent on these failures.

[romanP]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

"Harm Reduction" my ass, the whole thing is an oxymoron,

Please, entertain me, how is it an oxymoron? Do you even know what that word means?

$1:

used to try and baffle the general public by a group of so called "caring" people,

Well, they care more than you do, but you have a pretty fucked up idea of what "caring" means in the first place.

$1:

who would rather enable addicts to continue their self destructive behaviour than to actually force them into rehab and a chance at survival.

This is rehab. This is a chance at survival. Do I need to repeat to you again that safe injection sites reduce infection rates, are keeping needles off the streets, have a 30% success rate for helping addicts to recover, and that there has never been an overdose-related death at the Insite clinic? I guess I do, because here I am, repeating it, AGAIN.

Here's something I haven't said yet: heroin is actually perfectly safe if used correctly. It does not leave lasting scars on digestive tissues or cause neural damage. Once it leaves the body, it is as if there was never any there in the first place.

$1:

I guess it gives these people a cause to champion and someone to look down upon.

The only people I'm looking down on are people who refuse to look at the facts and remain ignorant, incompassionate buffoons no matter what you tell them.

$1:

As for harm reduction. Go ask anyone who lives in Vancouvers East End just how safe they feel with all the breakins and drug deals going on around or near the government funded shooting gallery?

There has not been an increase in crime since the clinic opened. Once again, facts win and emotional appeals are just fucking stupid!

$1:

Harm reduction isn't for the public it's for the addict so he doesn't get a disease, die, or cost the health care system large.

Addicts are not part of "the public" now? What's next, are we going to force them into a ghetto, build a wall around it and then torch the neighbourhood?

$1:

Mandatory rehab and extremely large prison sentences for dealers, seems to be the only way to stop this cycle of insanity.

Quite the opposite, large prison sentences for dealers just means that dealers have greater chances of finding new customers in prison. The only way to end this is to make the drugs legal and provide a safe place for addicts to recover.

[romanP]

Aging_Redneck Aging_Redneck:

romanP romanP:

I can't believe we have to have this same stupid argument all over again because some people are just too fickle and thickheaded and refuse to learn about anything if the law declares it bad. Here's some news for you: the law is not always right. In fact, the law can be utterly, maddeningly wrong. In the case of safe injection sites, some people consider it more important to follow the rule of law than to help people who can barely help themselves. Such people have fucked up priorities, and have an addiction of their own - an addiction to authority without reason.

Well, if I try and look at this very seriously. I would say that what you are saying is good, provided that you can convince me that giving drugs to a drug addict is compassionate.

What evidence do you have against it? Do you have any idea of the effects of heroin withdrawal? It's not a trip to Disneyland, I'll tell you that.

$1:

especially the hard core drugs that they are speaking of.

Why does it matter how "hard core" the drugs are? Just because you're uncomfortable with them doesn't mean that the people who are addicted to them don't need them, even if they are recovering.

$1:

You don't become an addict of these drugs without knowing someone that has die of it....and I don't think its a casual decision to be passing it out like fucking popcorn.

What point are you trying to make here? They don't give out heroin at safe injection clinics. They provide clean needles and counselling. It is not a drug den where they try to get people hooked, the people who come into the clinic are people who are already addicted and need help to at least stay healthy while they're addicted, if not, to get rid of their addiction.

[romanP]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Legalize them all. Then you wouldn't need a safe injection site.

Well, you would, you just wouldn't have people saying that safe injection sites are bad because the people they help are addicted to illegal drugs. People are still going to abuse themselves with various substances whether they're legal or not. Since making substances illegal doesn't do anything to improve the chances of addiction recovery, it's better to be on the side of legalisation.

[romanP]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

romanP romanP:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

No such thing as a safe injection.

More taxpayer money directed at drug pushers. This idiocy is being pushed to it's extreme.

No drugs are sold at safe injection sites. Please respond when you are armed with facts.

I did not say that.

Then what were you saying? Drug pushers are people who sell drugs, and no tax money is being spent to support people who sell drugs.

$1:

Idiots harmed with "clean" needles are still idiots.

Your opinion of drug addicts is irrelevant. The clinic works.

$1:

My (as a taxpayer) money is being spent on these failures.

"Your" tax money is being spent so that they may cease to be "failures."

[Scape]

People who are against safe injections are completely ignorant of the places like East Hastings and have no idea what front line social workers who try to deal with this social catastrophic disaster have on their hands on a daily basis. They don't understand that the current policy has been no policy and that these people HAVE been in jail only to be sent back out on to the streets. Criminalization of an epidemic is insane and is the resort of the simple. They lose their minds when ideas like this gain traction and resort to fear tactics. They complain that if you let one open then they will be everywhere but safe injection in rural Canada simply will not happen as it is only being used in the areas where the users are. This is only the start in something that should be much larger in scope. We need to transplant them from the urban core where they will be cut off from the ready supply so that treatment can commence. However, we can not move them all at once nor do we have the staff to care for them. With large numbers of them in one area simply putting them in jail is just moving the problem around and not addressing it. Disease is inevitable but the addictive nature of this sickness can not be easily rooted out and ignorance is only adding fuel to the fire.

[ridenrain]

I'd be for safe injection sites and even giving addicts drugs if it were done to get them off drugs, but that's not what's happening. We're simply enabling an illegal addiction that the courts don't want to address.

$1:

Last week, the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and Chief Constable Chu fired the first in a series of salvos aimed at the province's judiciary, declaring that a "plague of career criminals who infect our city" would "never be allowed to stand at any other time in our history in any other place in the world."

The VPD also made public the transcript and partial video of an interview that one of its officers conducted with a chronic offender. Until recently, the person was stealing "full-time" to support a $400-$500-a-day cocaine addiction. He has 26 criminal convictions and thus knows well how the justice system in Vancouver works. Or doesn't. In his words, it's "a joke."

The most obvious reason is rampant illicit drug use in the city, especially in the Downtown Eastside. One "super chronic" offender described in the VPD report is a crack cocaine addict who, when not incarcerated, purchases three-quarters of an ounce of the drug each day for personal consumption.

On the street, crack cocaine costs a minimum of $900 an ounce. Stolen or "fenced" goods typically fetch 10¢ on the dollar, so this chronic offender must steal $6,750 worth of goods each day, just to support his habit. He has admitted to committing up to 35 property crimes a day.

More troubling, the report concludes that "Vancouver has been the most lenient sentencing jurisdiction for [chronic] offenders" in British Columbia. Astonishingly, "evidence shows that after 30 or more convictions the sentenc[ing] actually decreases."

One needn't be a criminologist to realize that revolving courthouse doors that quickly spin drug-addicted crooks back into the streets - without effective addictions treatment - are no solution.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada ... ?id=613496

It's far past time for the other pillars to drop.

[Freakinoldguy]

$1:

Please, entertain me, how is it an oxymoron? Do you even know what that word means?

An oxymoron is made up of two or more words that seem to be opposite to each other, or actually are opposite.

$1:

Well, they care more than you do, but you have a pretty fucked up idea of what "caring" means in the first place.

Some yes, some no. Alot of them are social engineers who love to experiment while claiming compassion. BTW I do care. I care about getting the addicts the help they need and I also care about protecting the rest of society, who also suffer from this insidious disease by being victims. But I guess that doesn't matter so long as you can claim the moral high ground.

$1:

There has not been an increase in crime since the clinic opened. Once again, facts win and emotional appeals are just fucking stupid!

Pray tell, how much crime has been reduced by the safe injection site? I guess the status quo is alright so long as it isn't you on the receiving end.

$1:

Addicts are not part of "the public" now? What's next, are we going to force them into a ghetto, build a wall around it and then torch the neighbourhood?

They are and I never said they weren't but if I remember correctly, when a member of the public commits a crime he's arrested, tried and if found guilty put in jail. They are part of the public, so special treatment for any crimes they commit shouldn't be discounted under the guise of they're addicts and that's where mandatory rehab should be used. You can't have it both ways.

$1:

Quite the opposite, large prison sentences for dealers just means that dealers have greater chances of finding new customers in prison. The only way to end this is to make the drugs legal and provide a safe place for addicts to recover

Well we can both agree on one thing. Your last line. Your absolutely right about addicts needing a safe place to recover, unfortunately the safe injection site isn't helping them try and find it. What we need is government to wake up and make these places available. We have people living on the streets with mental disorders and drug addictions who, 30 years ago would have had the help available through institutions and group homes.

Personally I'm still pissed off about government closing all these facilities under the false claim that, they were dehumanizing and didn't allow these people to integrate into society, when we all new it was a cost cutting measure and nothing more. They could have changed how they operated alot easier than closing them and forcing people on to the streets who couldn't cope.

We are now living with the results of that financially expedient, yet morally wrong decision.