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Addiction and mental illness in Victoria


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#601 Mike K.

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Posted 20 June 2019 - 09:48 AM

Just a reminder to please include an article title and one to two paragraphs from any linked articles.


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#602 Jason-L

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Posted 20 June 2019 - 11:33 AM

It has. Kids weren't doing heroin in high school in decades past. You'd rarely hear of someone trying cocaine at a party, and it was a huge deal when it did happen.

 

My experience in the 80s, it seemed like it was pot & 'shrooms in the school circles based on the rumors or stories, but by the late 80s, it seemed like meth and crack were a thing even around the UVic campus.  Heroin made a comeback in the 90s, thanks to grunge and 'heroin chic', and I know from friends it was circulating in teenage circles in the area by the late 90s.

Again, it seems shocking but Victoria has had an active, underground, middle-class kid drug culture for decades.  It's not just the street zombies doing it... I mean, walking up Douglas from the City Hall bus stop in the 80s and early 90s was walking through a pharmacy of "bud? bud?" "down? down?" "up? up? ... thank goodness for cellphones moving dealers off those corners.

 

Also drug use seems to be cyclical.  It'll be all meth for a while, then someone will re-discover MDMA, and it's all Molly, then someone rediscovers heroin, and it's all opiods, and then someone finds cocaine, and it's all cocaine...  pot & alcohol seems to be the few steady elements.


Edited by Jason-L, 20 June 2019 - 11:34 AM.


#603 Midnightly

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Posted 20 June 2019 - 12:08 PM

i think another huge difference between today's drugs and years past is if you went on a bad trip or took something from a bad batch it didn't kill you like it does today.. yes there were people who died from an overdose but not in the numbers we've seen over the last few years



#604 phx

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Posted 22 June 2019 - 09:23 PM


the teen was buying illegal drugs online (and i can only imagine at the street level too), as more of this plays out in the news this is about more then just prescription opioids and the parents being unable to access his medical records, by the sounds of it he had surgery, was given opioids for pain (this is common) and he became addicted, we don't know if he was using them as prescribed or if he was using them in excess and ended up addicted... one can only guess that a doctor cut him off then he turned to street drugs to fill the addiction

 

 

It seems the kid was a junkie prior to the surgery.  That is, the prescription drugs weren't the cause of addiction.



#605 Midnightly

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Posted 22 June 2019 - 09:52 PM

It seems the kid was a junkie prior to the surgery.  That is, the prescription drugs weren't the cause of addiction.

 

 

The more info that comes out the more it seems he was deep into the drug culture, he knew the risks he was taking and even talked about it with a friend while doing drugs, he knew it could kill him and he was fine with that.. i can't say he fully understood the larger picture.. but he did know that he was playing Russian roulette with his life every time he did drugs and he was getting drugs from all different sources (downtown, online, school...)



#606 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 23 June 2019 - 07:46 AM

still he was only 16.   very sad for his family that by all accounts is not dealing with it very well at all.  not surprisingly.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 June 2019 - 07:47 AM.


#607 Matt R.

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Posted 23 June 2019 - 12:38 PM

You can order heroin off the internet from overseas and have it mailed to your door?

I wonder if my kids know this.

Matt.

#608 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 23 June 2019 - 12:39 PM

You can order heroin off the internet from overseas and have it mailed to your door?

I wonder if my kids know this.

Matt.

 

from the dark web.  i'm never even going to try to go there.



#609 Midnightly

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Posted 23 June 2019 - 01:19 PM

You can order heroin off the internet from overseas and have it mailed to your door?

I wonder if my kids know this.

Matt.

 

 

you can order all sorts of illegal drugs online.. it doesn't always show up.. if you've ever watched one of those border security shows they do find and stop many packages from entering Canada... but i'm sure they don't catch all



#610 phx

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Posted 23 June 2019 - 08:43 PM

 very sad for his family that by all accounts is not dealing with it very well at all.

 

Tragic indeed.  We'll see if the inquest makes any useful recommendations.



#611 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 02:45 AM

The parents pushed for secure care — a form of involuntary residential detox and treatment for youth who overdose on drugs and refuse treatment. They also wanted privacy laws, mainly the B.C. Infants Act, amended, saying as it exists it allowed their child to make his own medical decisions and prevented physicians from sharing with them possibly life-saving information. The jury did not include these views in their recommendations.

 

 

https://www.timescol...outh-1.23870250

 

so i think it's clear that as a society that we are unwilling to weaken privacy laws and certainly we are not willing to institutionalize people against their will.

 

so i think we just have to live with the fact that some percentage of people will use drugs and die.   so be it i guess.



#612 Mike K.

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 05:04 AM

Many fathers and mothers in our society say the system prevents them from being a parent. It’s just another one of those corners we’ve backed ourselves into.

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#613 sebberry

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 06:54 AM

https://www.timescol...outh-1.23870250

 

so i think it's clear that as a society that we are unwilling to weaken privacy laws and certainly we are not willing to institutionalize people against their will.

 

so i think we just have to live with the fact that some percentage of people will use drugs and die.   so be it i guess.

 

 

Many fathers and mothers in our society say the system prevents them from being a parent. It’s just another one of those corners we’ve backed ourselves into.

 

The trouble is if we weaken the privacy of kids in the care of their parents you'll get the LGTBQ crowd up in arms that kids confiding in their doctors that they no longer identify with their birth gender could be put at risk of abuse and/or neglect at the hands of their bible thumping parents.  (heck, look at the GSA issue in Alberta...)

 

So where do you draw the line?  Unfortunately not every doctor will have the same definition of 'reasonable breach of privacy where the safety of the youth is concerned'.


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#614 Mike K.

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 07:30 AM

That’s the corner.

Many more youth are going to die because their mom and dad, who would give the world to help them, have no idea their son or daughter is walking the red carpet towards a deadly overdose or turning to criminality to pay for their addiction.

Hate to break it to the parents, but organized crime is well aware that by using teens as young as 14 to commit petty crimes (auto theft, theft from autos, break-ins) the law has no teeth to penalize them, while mom and dad have no say in what their child does. I know a mother who is struggling with a 14-year-old who has found himself in a circle where criminality is occurring and she was told by police she can’t force her child (yes, a 14-year-old is a child) to stay away from his newfound “friends” and their associates. It’s devastating to her and her family, while her son is walking a dangerous path that if left uncorrected will derail his life.


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#615 sebberry

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 07:52 AM

I know a mother who is struggling with a 14-year-old who has found himself in a circle where criminality is occurring and she was told by police she can’t force her child (yes, a 14-year-old is a child) to stay away from his newfound “friends” and their associates. It’s devastating to her and her family, while her son is walking a dangerous path that if left uncorrected will derail his life.

 

Good thing CoV has cut police funding resulting in the cancellation of the school liaison program and crime prevention units.  Have to churn out more consumers of the low barrier housing that's so good for our community!


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#616 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 07:54 AM

those young ones will be able to advance their crime with free get-away buses.
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#617 sebberry

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 08:03 AM

The whole Social Justice Worrier stance really isn't bringing social justice to anyone in the long run.  It just fosters and prolongs the suffering it purports to resolve.  


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#618 Nparker

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 09:18 AM

I remain puzzled by a society that seems to believe that people with significant mental health and addiction issues have the necessary capacity to make the best decisions for themselves.


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#619 rmpeers

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 09:40 AM

Surely an exception to the privacy rules cod be made for opioids? Like you can't access any other medical info but you can find out about opioid use?

#620 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 28 June 2019 - 10:16 AM

I remain puzzled by a society that seems to believe that people with significant mental health and addiction issues have the necessary capacity to make the best decisions for themselves.


right. I bet upon a clean release from a residential rehab every drug addict would sign a waiver saying if they are in deep again they agree to be incarcerated. the problem is when that time comes they can’t thibk straight.

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