27 Sep 2023, 5:59 pm
goldfish21
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Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 21,517
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
01 Oct 2023, 1:55 pm
Vancouver is home to the first safe injection site in North America. It's been operating since 2003. There are other non profits that operate similar facilities in that neighbourhood. It's rumoured (probably known) that the other small chain of safe use sights is owned and operated by a drug gang.. makes sense to keep their customers alive so I'd believe it.
The official government sanctioned one is called Insite. I recall reading a couple articles about the cost:benefit since it opened. Sure, it costs money to staff it with Nurses and to stock supplies of needles/naloxone etc, but it definitely saves lives And it reduces disease transmission and hospital visits which saves more money to taxpayers than it costs to operate the safe injection site. They also have info about detox/rehab etc and get people into treatment programs when they're ready And there's a bed available. (Far too few detox/treatment beds.. so when people detox and then have a several week wait for treatment, they relapse. Stupid not to align the capacities of the systems.. which makes it seem like it's done on purpose to keep addicts trapped in a system where everyone from the drug dealer to the detox facilities make money on repeat business.)
Some people are against these places. Complain we're paying for supplies and in some cases drugs.. and it's like, uuuuh, supplies And even drugs cost less than letting that addict commit property crimes to get drugs and then contract Hep C or HIV and cost the taxpayer way more money for a lifetime of medical treatments never mind frequent ambulance rides to the hospital ER etc etc. IDEALLY we'd have more detox and treatment facilities to bring the number of users down via sobriety instead of 6 deaths/day every day.
_________________
No
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.
01 Oct 2023, 6:59 pm
02 Oct 2023, 12:42 am
02 Oct 2023, 12:42 am
goldfish21
Veteran
Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 21,517
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
02 Oct 2023, 2:38 pm
The official government sanctioned one is called Insite. I recall reading a couple articles about the cost:benefit since it opened. Sure, it costs money to staff it with Nurses and to stock supplies of needles/naloxone etc, but it definitely saves lives And it reduces disease transmission and hospital visits which saves more money to taxpayers than it costs to operate the safe injection site. They also have info about detox/rehab etc and get people into treatment programs when they're ready And there's a bed available. (Far too few detox/treatment beds.. so when people detox and then have a several week wait for treatment, they relapse. Stupid not to align the capacities of the systems.. which makes it seem like it's done on purpose to keep addicts trapped in a system where everyone from the drug dealer to the detox facilities make money on repeat business.)
Some people are against these places. Complain we're paying for supplies and in some cases drugs.. and it's like, uuuuh, supplies And even drugs cost less than letting that addict commit property crimes to get drugs and then contract Hep C or HIV and cost the taxpayer way more money for a lifetime of medical treatments never mind frequent ambulance rides to the hospital ER etc etc. IDEALLY we'd have more detox and treatment facilities to bring the number of users down via sobriety instead of 6 deaths/day every day.
I think on balance, and as highlighted by the points you make, safe sites for injection and drug use are a good thing, not a bad thing.
I didn't know that fact about Vancouver being the first and having been operating such a site since 2003. Interesting!
Net positive, yes. But still controversial as some people complain that their tax dollars are going to addicts blah blah blah but they don't understand that it costs less money to have them do their drugs in a safer way than it does to let them all just do them in the street. There are a few other supervised sites around the area, but still not nearly enough for the number of addicts as you'll see people shooting up in alleys etc just a stone's throw from these sites. Can't get everyone to use them.
Also, it's the first one for IV/street drugs.. but supervised drug consumption sites have been around since the first pub was opened and bar tender was on shift.
Allllso, with the widespread use of drugs from caffeine to codeine and everything else under the Sun, it's pretty safe to assume that virtually every room ever constructed has at one point or another been a safe drug consumption site even if people didn't do the consuming right there in the room and merely smuggled their drugs in their bloodstreams. People pretty much literally do drugs everywhere all the time. These places are a bit specialized, of course, but we can't go around believing they're truly the first rooms humans are going to consume drugs in lol no far from it.
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No
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.02 Oct 2023, 4:29 pm
goldfish21
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Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 21,517
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
02 Oct 2023, 4:37 pm
I would not rank tylenol up there as an unsafe drug easy to overdose on. Almost gotta Try to overdose.. even with so called "extra strength," tylenol you'd have to swallow 1/2 the bottle or more to do serious damage, which I would count as intentional vs. accidental.
People more easily overdose on alcohol and get alcohol poisoning/death. Heck, people have died from taking too much caffeine.
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No
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.02 Oct 2023, 4:40 pm
goldfish21
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Joined: 17 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 21,517
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
02 Oct 2023, 5:18 pm
People more easily overdose on alcohol and get alcohol poisoning/death. Heck, people have died from taking too much caffeine.
I was thinking that taking a pack of acetaminophen might result in a hospital visit, and that they are easy to consume quickly. You would indeed have to do it on purpose in most cases, but I kind of meant it would be easy to do such thing on an impulse in a matter of a minute or so, whereas drinking alcohol to excess seems like a more prolonged effort.
You'd have to be a particular type of person to be able to drink strong alcohol without a mixer.
But yes, alcohol is dangerous too, for sure.
A lot more people die from accidental alcohol poisoning than accidental tylenol overdoses.
Maaaaany people like me just drink spirits straight. Tons of others take shots and drink it quickly. I'd bet $ someone could drink enough alcohol in 60 seconds to die. Just take a bottle and tip it up and chug it. People do that sometimes.. and they get off lucky if all they do is blackout and vomit. But, sometimes people die - usually accidentally, but possibly intentionally once in a blue moon.
Alcohol causes more societal problems than any other drug due to it's widespread use and the fact that it's socially acceptable - or at least has been in past generations. There are DEFINITELY more non-drinking young people than ever these days with all the health warnings about cancer etc. Tooooons more water and kombucha drinkers vs. alcohol than Ever. With changing drinking driving laws and health warnings, I think we'll see a declining number of alcoholics. It's already noticeable. Lots of people quitting drinking entirely these days, and others simply not starting.
_________________
No
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.02 Oct 2023, 5:21 pm
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