Addiction and mental illness in Victoria

Today on CFAX it was noted that Victoria has the highest overdose rate of any region in BC, a statistic that will be pushed to make the case for a safe injection site. Of course, the interviewee also noted that the majority of drug overdose deaths are in Vancouver, and they have a SIS. But anyways.

 

More info on the postponement of the Cool Aid Event here: http://victoria.citi...ntown-victoria/

 

They are concerned that there may be access issues for event-goers. The Royals leave approximately 1.5 hours prior to the start of the event, but the situation down on the harbourfront may be chaotic following their last public appearance.

 

I guess I can't blame them, it's probably better to postpone it than to be at the mercy of various organizations controlling access to/from the harbour area. It's going to be crazy down there.

Today on CFAX it was noted that Victoria has the highest overdose rate of any region in BC, a statistic that will be pushed to make the case for a safe injection site. Of course, the interviewee also noted that the majority of drug overdose deaths are in Vancouver, and they have a SIS. But anyways.

 

The science was conclusive years ago, before fentanyl was being used in a widespread manner. Insite was proven to reduce injection drug use, reduce mortality, reduce disease transmission rates, and increase access to addiction treatment programs. 

 

So what happened when fentanyl came on the scene? Did we expand the use of safe injection sites? Nope. Does that mean safe injections sites don't do what they are scientifically proven to do? Of course not. Is that what you're implying anyways? It sure is. 

Edited by JoshRH, 21 September 2016 - 04:20 PM.

There's an international meeting taking place regarding drugs, and they're looking to the Portugal model as an example of a better way to handle substance use disorders rather than criminalization. The police are just smarter than you, and they know that no matter how many dealers they arrest, there will be more to take their place, because there's money to be made. That's why the Portugal model works, because by regulating and controlling all drugs, you eliminate the need for dealers. If you want to stay clean, less likely to have someone 'pushing' the drug on you when the government controls a clean and reliable supply.

Of course we're lagging behind in North America, because we have so many unscientific minds that just think drugs are bad, and should be treated as a criminal issue. Keep up the ideological whining about the lack of arrests, and the rest of us will keep supporting a forward thinking, science based approach to drug policy. Eventually the provincial and federal politicians will ignore your whining, and fully embrace the better progressive drug policy. In the mean time, blame your own feet dragging for the current state of affairs.

Good grief, Josh, drugs ARE bad. They KILL people. Prolonged street drug use will mess you up at best, kill you at worst.

There is no "good" in regards to drugs, it's all bad. If you use them recreationally once in a blue moon that's one thing, but once addiction sets in you're in a world of trouble.

As for the "police being smarter," get real. The police follow the line of least resistance. They don't want controversy, they don't want extra work. If they followed drug pushers around mercilessly, the goofs would leave. They wouldn't hang around, they'd pack up and leave. What we need is to get the people who are trying to get their lives back on track to benefit from the services we're paying for and not be hunted down by drug dealers on every street corner. But what we have now is a sad system of entitlement that treats dealers as untouchables because the law sucks. For God's sake, make life tough for the scourge on our society and it will disappear. We can do it well within the law but our officials choose not to.

What do you think kills more people, drugs or heart disease? According to your logic, we should be arresting sugar pushers en masse until they leave our towns.

I can't believe we still have people who don't understand that the war on drugs was a failure, who don't accept that the medical community has found scientifically proven better methods with harm reduction, and who still cry for greater criminalization.

...As for the "police being smarter," get real. The police follow the line of least resistance. They don't want controversy, they don't want extra work...

And as I previously mentioned the Victoria police are VERY likely being directed to look the other way by the overseer of local police governance.

While foreign jurisdictions are free to take whatever approach they like to dealing with the scourge of drug addiction, I don't appreciate the continued flaunting of the laws of my country based on the ideology of certain elected officials. Lisa Helps is not Parliament in Ottawa and she certainly isn't the Supreme Court of Canada, so I am not sure where she gets off deciding which national laws are to be followed and which can be ignored in the CoV.

This whole Portugal thing is complete misinformation. Dealers get arrested. Individuals found with more than 10 days worth of drugs get arrested. Individuals with less than 10 days worth of drugs have their drugs confiscated. And at the end of the day, the best they can say about their program is that it did not increase drug addiction dramatically. Finally, the cost of all the recovery programs they offer is prohibitive and they are starting to cut them. I would say check your facts Josh, but I realize that you probably think Michael Moore documentaries are scientific....

And as I previously mentioned the Victoria police are VERY likely being directed to look the other way by the overseer of local police governance.

While foreign jurisdictions are free to take whatever approach they like to dealing with the scourge of drug addiction, I don't appreciate the continued flaunting of the laws of my country based on the ideology of certain elected officials. Lisa Helps is not Parliament in Ottawa and she certainly isn't the Supreme Court of Canada, so I am not sure where she gets off deciding which national laws are to be followed and which can be ignored in the CoV.

*****this******

Are you high?

Are you saying that drugs affect one's judgement? Then maybe you should not expect people in low barrier housing to exercise good judgement in terms of what's best for them (ie quitting drugs vs continuing in their addicted ways).

What do you think kills more people, drugs or heart disease? According to your logic, we should be arresting sugar pushers en masse until they leave our towns.

I can't believe we still have people who don't understand that the war on drugs was a failure, who don't accept that the medical community has found scientifically proven better methods with harm reduction, and who still cry for greater criminalization.

 

As has been said many times before in the past 10,000, yes 10,000 posts on this thread, that many of the people we rant and rave about are part of the homeless community because they have a mental illness.

You can help those people with medications, but they have to want to be helped. This is a catch 22 of course because part of having a mental illness is believing that you are okay, and doing just fine, and that God "talks to me and will take care of me". Those people can live that way for years until they try to harm themselves, at which point they end up being talked off the side of the bridge or the roof of the parkade and taken to hospital. Once they are in that situation they can be introduced to medications that will help them, instead of the street drugs that will harm them. There are many success stories in this process, and many failures by people who have already cooked their brains to the point of no return. Many of these people are permanently homeless or deceased. The success story folks often end up giving back to the community by working at shelters, food banks and other outreach programs. The rest of us that don't fit into any of these categories can sit down and chime in with their logic for a solution that is not the logic of the people they are complaining about.

Needless to say many of us have family or friends who have experienced the tragedy of the waste of a life that mental illness brings.

A little more compassion will go a long way, and just remember...it could be your friend or loved one that you are talking about next.

I feel like you both represent the two ideological extremes of Victoria here. Now if we could just slide somewhere right in the middle...

I feel like you both represent the two ideological extremes of Victoria here. Now if we could just slide somewhere right in the middle...

 

With the mentally ill you can only try for so long to apply logic where no logic is possible.

This whole Portugal thing is complete misinformation. Dealers get arrested. Individuals found with more than 10 days worth of drugs get arrested. Individuals with less than 10 days worth of drugs have their drugs confiscated. And at the end of the day, the best they can say about their program is that it did not increase drug addiction dramatically. Finally, the cost of all the recovery programs they offer is prohibitive and they are starting to cut them. I would say check your facts Josh, but I realize that you probably think Michael Moore documentaries are scientific....

It demonstrably reduced heroin use by half, and reduced drug overdose deaths by 5 times. Get your facts straight. 

What do you think kills more people, drugs or heart disease? According to your logic, we should be arresting sugar pushers en masse until they leave our towns.

I can't believe we still have people who don't understand that the war on drugs was a failure, who don't accept that the medical community has found scientifically proven better methods with harm reduction, and who still cry for greater criminalization.

I agree that it's been a failure. But you can't have everyday normal working folks being approached by drug dealers offering to sell them crack on the street. We seem more concerned with improving urban livability through slowing down cars than rounding up drug dealers.

I agree that it's been a failure. But you can't have everyday normal working folks being approached by drug dealers offering to sell them crack on the street. We seem more concerned with improving urban livability through slowing down cars than rounding up drug dealers.

I dunno, I'm personally more offended by the efforts of banks and insurance salesmen intruding on my personal time with unsolicited phone calls, trying to part me from my hard earned money. I'm also more offended by sugar-pushers targeting children through advertising in public spaces and television. If you don't want drugs, you just say "no thanks", just like you would to the bankers or the bakery.

 

Once you get over the indoctrinated need to stigmatize drug users, and learn to apply a bit of relativity to all of societies problems, you quickly realize that getting bent out of shape over a relatively small subset of the population using drugs doesn't really make sense. Stop trying to criminalize a medical problem, and stop letting unscrupulous dealers exploit substance use disorders by controlling the product.

^ You are serious right? Half of this threat is discussing how drug abuse had left to poverty and homelessness and you think that it is no big deal?

 

I have no objection at all to someone snorting or shooting anything they want or living in a ditch if that is their choice - right up until the point where they expect me to start paying for their treatment or care.

^ I'm all for some of your ideas, but can you point to another country where a radically different approach has been tried, and it has reduced drug addiction?

I dunno, I'm personally more offended by the efforts of banks and insurance salesmen intruding on my personal time...I'm also more offended by sugar-pushers targeting children through advertising in public spaces and television...

I'll keep this in mind the next time I step on a potentially lethal sugar packet lying in the grass of a city park or when an insurance salesman viciously yells at me when I am walking down the street simply for glancing in his direction. And let's not forget the hordes of bankers dashing into the street without warning putting themselves and drivers in danger. It's a corporate jungle out there folks!

I'll keep this in mind the next time I step on a potentially lethal sugar packet lying in the grass of a city park or when an insurance salesman viciously yells at me when I am walking down the street simply for glancing in his direction. And let's not forget the hordes of bankers dashing into the street without warning putting themselves and drivers in danger. It's a corporate jungle out there folks!

 

I disagree with you generally but that was pretty funny imagery.

^ I'm all for some of your ideas, but can you point to another country where a radically different approach has been tried, and it has reduced drug addiction?

Have you not been reading the thread?

 

Portugal

 

http://www.yesmagazi...ith-communities