3956 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

An actor, a hockey reporter, a 12-year-old: These are some victims of B.C.'s toxic drug crisis


https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6419363

^ Then you have yet another article like that, that tries to tell us the addicted are just like all of us.



Lapointe says there is a misconception that the only people at risk are regular drug users. In fact, she says, many are first-time or casual users who think they are purchasing a certain drug only to get something contaminated with fentanyl or other, even more lethal, substances.

"The drugs are indiscriminate," she said.




Give us the real statistics, then.

One story in that article is about a 12 year old girl dying. Should we have supplied her with free drugs? If not, why would we supply it to 16, 30 or 40 year olds?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 April 2022 - 05:09 AM.

[Mike K.]

It used to be you’d get expelled from school if you were found to be using hard drugs, or even pot in some cases. There was zero tolerance.

What changed over the last 25 years that is leading to 12 year olds doing meth and using fentanyl? Is the DARE program still in use? Has it changed? Are kids required to take a program like DARE, like we were back in the day? Is the messaging ‘if you use don’t use alone’ creating the impression that drugs are ok?

What is the social benefit to so much MDMA? Is that what the UVic party scene is now, a drug scene? It wasn’t back when I was there. We didn’t “roll hard” to celebrate anything. That’s a really dumb phrase, btw, “roll hard.”

[Victoria Watcher]

 Is the messaging ‘if you use don’t use alone’ creating the impression that drugs are ok?

What is the social benefit to so much MDMA? Is that what the UVic party scene is now, a drug scene? It wasn’t back when I was there. We didn’t “roll hard” to celebrate anything. That’s a really dumb phrase, btw, “roll hard.”

 

 

 

[Mike K.]

Holy ****.

[On the Level]

Holy ****.

 

Oh....it gets better.

 

 

A groundbreaking new program from Vancouver’s PHS Community Services Society will allow people to buy fentanyl instead of relying on the increasingly contaminated and unpredictable illicit supply.

 

https://thetyee.ca/N...paign=editorial

 

How long till we also start handing out Carfentanil and Benzodiazepines?

 

Has anyone done any modelling to determine the death rate over the next 5 years now that we are flooding our communities with hard drugs?

[Mike K.]

Wow.

So this fentanyl fear the government said plagued the drug supply, wasn’t fear at all, it was demand for fentanyl in the drug supply? So now the government-backed operators are selling it to drug users?

[On the Level]

Wow.

So this fentanyl fear the government said plagued the drug supply, wasn’t fear at all, it was demand for fentanyl in the drug supply? So now the government-backed operators are selling it to drug users?

 

Yup....all in the name of harm reduction.  In an over simplified view of the world, as long as everyone knows exactly what is in their drugs, there will be fewer ODs.  Of course, that is only partly true, but just like Substance Uvic, if you only focus on a portion of the problem and ignore the other aspects, you come up with solutions that are not well thought out.

 

Look at housing first, defund the police, etc., there is always a sliver of truth but there are massive holes in the policy that no one will answer.  In the case of defund police, could we use some of the funds to get people mental health and addiction support and reduce the need for Police?  Perhaps, but not the way we are going about it and certainly not before all of the supports are in place and have had time to provide some reduction in crime.  

 

You'll never get these groups to admit let alone discuss the challenges with their approach.

Edited by On the Level, 15 April 2022 - 09:52 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The program is only open to her current patients right now, but she says there is capacity to scale-up to reach hundreds and even thousands of people across B.C.


Why not tens of thousands? Sounds like a great program we can all get behind. Let’s introduce it in middle schools too.

[Mike K.]

If we walk this fentanyl issue all the way back to when it began, circa 2014-2015 or maybe a couple of years prior, the narrative was that bad actors were infusing fentanyl into drugs, and this was killing people. Fentanyl dealers were then described as killers, and bad agents. The public, meanwhile, was mystified how dealers could be so willing to kill their customers.

Then we started hearing that users were ‘asking for fentanyl,’ which was never addressed or at least not in a way we’d expect when raised as an issue. We just kept hearing bad drugs were killing people, and that we must stop the supply of fentanyl.

Fast forward to 2022, and now fentanyl is being sold willingly by a doctor working for a government-backed operator, to cut out the drug dealer? I get that different forms of or blends of fentanyl can have a serious impact, but how did we go from fentanyl is bad, to doctors disbursing it? Holy cow.

To your point, OTL, this last decade was quite the means to an end.

[Victoria Watcher]

If we walk this fentanyl issue all the way back to when it began, circa 2014-2015 or maybe a couple of years prior, the narrative was that bad actors were infusing fentanyl into drugs, and this was killing people. Fentanyl dealers were then described as killers, and bad agents. The public, meanwhile, was mystified how dealers could be so willing to kill their customers.

Then we started hearing that users were ‘asking for fentanyl,’ which was never addressed or at least not in a way we’d expect when raised as an issue. We just kept hearing bad drugs were killing people, and that we must stop the supply of fentanyl.

 

 

 

 

 

Many people using substances have become habituated to fentanyl’s potency, and can no longer be stabilized on other prescription options like heroin, methadone or Suboxone, Sutherland and her colleagues have observed.

 

Fentanyl is now required in order to provide a viable alternative to the illicit supply for people who use opioids like heroin or fentanyl itself.

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 April 2022 - 10:34 AM.

[Mike K.]

Enter carfentanil.

At what point does this end?

[LJ]

^When the person dies.

[Barrrister]

Exactly how much brain damage do these drugs do over an extended time and at what point is the damage irreversible? 

[Victoria Watcher]

Keith Richards.

[phx]

I went downtown this afternoon, something I rarely do these days.  Pandora Street was a literal zombie apocalypse.

 

It is sad to see how far Victoria has fallen.

[Barrrister]

We drove down Pandora and it seems a lot worse than even a couple of months ago. We have abandoned these poor souls to their own demons. Shame on us.

[Matt R.]

I made a point of checking out east Hastings between Main and Gore this week, and it was shocking. Yesterday I made a point of walking up Pandora to Cook and was flabbergasted at how bad it is. In the time it took me to walk the couple blocks two people were “down” and fire and ambulance on scene.

Sad sights.

[Nparker]

Free fantasy will make it all better

[Victoria Watcher]

Victoria faces growing need for inhalation services at overdose prevention sites

Inhalation is the most common means of consuming drugs, but only two sites allow it—putting more users out on the street

 

 

Saundra was just looking for a pipe when she wandered into SOLID Outreach Society a few months ago. The mother of five, whose last name has been omitted to protect her privacy, moved to Canada in 2014 with her partner before relocating to Victoria three years ago. 

 

Since her chance encounter with SOLID, Saundra has become a regular user of the organization’s temporary overdose prevention site (OPS) on Pandora, which offers users a choice between receiving their drugs intravenously through injection or orally through inhalation. 

 

While there are nine overdose prevention sites in Greater Victoria, the availability of inhalation services is proving an issue for Victoria’s drug users, as SOLID’s Pandora location is one of only two sites in the region to offer both, with the other located in Rock Bay and run by Cool Aid Society. Most sites only offer injection, despite BC Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe’s annual report noting in February that a majority of BC drug users are ingesting their drugs through smoking rather than injecting. Across the province, there are 38 OPS, but only 13 offer supervised inhalation.

 

 

 

 

But Karen Ward*—formerly of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and now an advisor to the City of Vancouver—says overdose prevention services and safe supply are the real answers, not incremental increases to treatment beds. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Ward didn’t start using herself until her mid-30s. Born in Hamilton, she lived for a time in Halifax before switching coasts in 1999 at age 26. She studied history at the University of B.C. and was an artist at Gallery Gachet, an artist-run centre with the slogan, ‘Art is a Means of Survival.’

 

But she was also on a cocktail of prescribed psychiatric drugs that didn’t seem to be doing her any good. In fact, they made her feel not herself, like she hadn’t had a moment of clarity, of enjoying herself, for years. She had done a little bit of recreational cocaine use over the years, but at that point, in 2008, she began smoking crack cocaine regularly. Homeless for a couple of years, she got into social housing in 2010 and just turned 47 last week.

https://vancouversun...eople-to-listen

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 April 2022 - 06:41 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

As a doctor, I was taught ‘first do no harm.’ That’s why I have concerns with the so-called ‘safe supply’ of drugs

 

Meanwhile, in my addictions medicine clinic, patients who feel trapped by fentanyl ask me to prescribe them hydromorphone, a commonly used strong opioid painkiller that is employed in a different sort of “safe supply” currently offered in Ontario and British Columbia. In this, doctors prescribe high doses of hydromorphone for patients to use anywhere, and to swallow, crush, or inject as they prefer. With no clear evidence yet on whether this kind of “safe supply” saves lives overall, I urge these patients to instead take treatments for opioid use disorder that are supported by medical science, such as methadone and buprenorphine – opioid agonist therapy (OAT). When they learn that I will not fulfill their request for hydromorphone, some are disappointed, or angry. “It’s what I need,” I’ve been told. “Why won’t you give it to me?”

 

I decline to write these prescriptions because I am not convinced they are “safe.” Much of my discomfort with “safe supply” comes from what I am told by other patients who are also struggling with substances in their lives. They say that “safe supply” is harming them, as street availability has risen and prices have fallen.

 

 

 

https://www.theglobe...have-a-problem/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 April 2022 - 06:42 AM.