Excellent work Adam. This won’t end until BC stops voting NDP. And the Liberals are removed. There is no such thing as safer supply, the govt just enables and prolongs their tortured life of addiction, the majority of them are barely functioning outside these “safe supply” sites. This govt coalition refuses to admit their program has failed terribly, but we can all see it with our own eyes, in every city and town when we drive by the crime-ridden safe supply sites. And it’s only getting worse. Safe supply needs to end.
“If you allow the Government to break the law during emergencies, they will create emergencies to break the law.” - This is the fundamental philosophy that is behind the "Safer Supply" agenda. Create a crisis so you can control the "solution". They are deliberately trying to undermine the social order that we have lived under for decades. These are not "good people" making poor decisions.
I read an article by an economist recently about real wages starting to drop in the 1970's, mothers having to go out to work since then, and the resulting stress on women who normally provided emotional support for the family and the children especially who needed her support. He thought the current drug use by the youth was tied to this. That was before 2021 when it became clear that at present the average young Canadian has little hope of owning a home.
True, except real wages dropped because the labour market was flooded with new workers--women who believed that working for someone else instead of their family would free them.
Thanks, Adam. As many of these investigations and articles as you can possibly complete are how many are necessary. “Safer supply” is not safer for the kid who would not be experimenting/addicted without it, nor is it safer for the “prescriptees” who sell their prescriptions for their preferred Street drugs. Nanaimo certainly is NOT “safer” than it was before this ridiculous government brainwave.
Excellent reporting Adam with insights into a truly tragic public policy.
When we reviewed "safe supply" (Public Supply of Addictive Drugs, link below) last year we summarized papers that talked about diversion. Many authors acknowledged that people sell their drugs. In one paper 19 of the 21 people who received PSAD admitted to diverting their prescriptions (#14 in our Results). The BC Govt is reducing their credibility by denying that diversion is occurring.
Our review identified some important gaps in research, including: "Will PSAD lead to increased diversion creating an expanded illicit market and more cases of OUD and other substance use disorders?"
Few people read our review because it was immediately attacked by advocates for PSAD. Your reporting has helped ensure that important questions don't remain suppressed. Like many others I'm grateful. For anyone interested here's a link to our review:
IMO the big problem with this line of reasoning is that denying the 3/21 (for the sake of argument) who don't divert their hydromorphone a treatment that works for them due to the 19/21 who do isn't ethical and probably not constitutional either.
Part of the problem is the boomercon mentality that drug users are down the totem pole of considerations: this article makes it clear that property values and rich teenagers are more important. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but if addiction is a medical issue, you can't really deny Peter treatment because Paul abuses his medicine.
It's a complicated issue---are we going to end drug prohibition? Nah, too much money tied up in it. In some sense, "safe supply" is a way for the medical cartel to continue its late 19th/early 20th century monopolies over opiods. Maybe that is really the problem, or at least a part of it?
I'm a bit confused about how this "safer supply" works. In earlier years I would occasionally see a young person drinking methadone in front of the pharmacist. This made sense because methadone has a street value, just like "dillies".
Why are addicts provided with dilaudid they can take home? Shouldn't they be expected to take their pills on site?
Also, as a Duncan resident who sometimes drives past the "Wellness and Recovery Center" on York Street, I'm always upset to see the collection of sad people and their carts collected in front. It's like a (very) mini DTES in Vancouver. I know they drove a longterm restaurant out of their location across the street.
A lot of boomercons don't understand that values like "human dignity" and "agency" and "autonomy" now influence social planning and medicine. It's no longer "parliamentary supremacy" where if the lemmings are convinced to vote for members who enact it, it is law. There's a complex system of human rights and values that govern what is an acceptable government interaction with society, especially vulnerable members of society.
I mean, even your post, OK, a restaurant was driven out of business. Let's presume safe supply does actually help some people---even if it is a net loss at the population level (because diverted supply creates more addicts) maybe a subset of individuals who would otherwise die do not die. Is a restaurant worth more than a drug user?
These are questions that have more complicated answers than this article suggests.
It sounds like your problem isn't really with safe supply, it's with street disorder, and the boomercon mind thinks the two are related. You mention a dozen or so people outside of the clinic---presumably far more people are given Rx for hydromorphone from the clinic. The issue is that street disorder is one problem, and diversion another, and overdose from fentanyl another.
The problem of street disorder is basically all over every large urban area in BC---even Maple Ridge, or Trail or Prince George: drive down the "right street" and there is disorder. So that is a problem that should be solved, but, unfortunately, given the Charter, it's very unlikely the historical "what's your business? Move along then..." situation that prevailed for much of history is ever going to renew itself, absent use of the notwithstanding clause, which is probably not justified.
The problem of diversion is a serious one, and teenagers really shouldn't be using opiods, they're not even fun party drugs. Acid, MDMA, even meth is better than down. This is a serious issue, but, again, I think teenagers are being portrayed as stupider than they really are, telling porkie pies in order to get out of responsibility. Or maybe the TikTok/Cellphone generation is different from the 90s-00s drug dilettante teenager set, where you would go to erowid.org and look up drugs, and read all sorts of things. But I am skeptical, I google "dillies" and the first hit is about hydropmorphone. Maybe these are stupid rich kids dosing these things---but there's only so much you can do in a free society.
Finally, we have the issue of fentanyl of unknown potency. At least some users are using fentanyl patches/hydromorphone as a substitute for street drugs. These people are being helped by this program, so, to take it away because home owners and rich stupid teenagers are more important? I don't think that's a good suggestion either.
So it's a problem on at least three fronts, but it's probably unconstitutional to take away safe supply, it would violate a drug user's right to security of the person. I don't think there are easy answers, and, on the one hand, as a sort of responsible psychedelic dilettante in the old Head vein, I find these street disorder producing junkies loathsome, but, on the other hand, a lot of them have FAS, childhood trauma, learning disabilities, etc. etc. It's hardly like it is their fault. You can't just intern them in treatment either, again, due to the Charter.
I do know that at many conferences with panels with "lived experience" participants, when I ask "whither the LSD or MDMA or other relatively safe and fun drugs?" their eyes bug out. The whole junkie mentality is to get as much junk as possible, and fuck everything and everyone else. I do think there's a bit too much emphasis on junk and junkies. My "lived experience" is that my psychedelic using peers are mostly normal middle class people who like to party on the weekends or at a few festivals a year. That's responsible drug use. In fact, this use pattern is so safe that it practically requires no Government intervention to sustain.
So what do we do? Especially for young people---why in the heck are young people "partying" on down instead of acid, mushrooms, etc? You can grow tons of mushrooms for a few dollars...
I don’t see psychedelics and party drugs as gateway drugs and expect that significant numbers of teens/young adults will experiment with them. Unfortunately too many of these drugs are now corrupted with fentanyl and worse, which can result in serious medical emergencies and even death. Maybe this is more of an issue in the US than Canada.
Have you read Shellenberger’s San Fransicko? In part it’s an exploration of the issues you raise about rights and dignity etc. But it also asks questions about why the people who set policy and provide services to the drug-dependant seem to turn away from deeper questions of human suffering or issues of personal responsibility. Re treatment, my opinion is it should be available at exactly the moment an addict asks for it, not some weeks or months after when a treatment bed is finally available. I am watching Alberta’s approach with interest.
The "gateway" effect works at the population level---I've had family with hydromorphone after surgery, and I had a couple tablets. I didn't have any desire for more, though I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed it. I felt pretty relaxed and calm, had a really good night's sleep. But I also enjoy my life most of the time. If I didn't, I imagine the effect is more pronounced. I also didn't snort it, inject it, etc.
A lot of drug users, and the addiction industry, act like the issue is the substance and that anyone can become an addict. I know people who've snorted cocaine on the weekends for years, never had a problem. I know people who did it one evening on vacation and never had the urge to do it again, even when offered. I also know people who now, if cocaine is mentioned, perk up and go "do you have any??" It's the person AND the drug. Population level studies can't capture that, and will lead to bad policies, when it comes to drugs, IMO.
The broad issue re themes like personal responsibility is that there's no scientific evidence for free will or anything like that, and the materialist view also explains why some people just cannot understand that---it's not a moral failing or even some sort of inability to "see the logic," it's that some people believe in things like free will and personal responsibility even once you show them that people are a mechanism, which has been a theory for 100s of years now, it's nothing new.
The political reason why we have more focus on harm reduction than treatment is twofold: one is that treatment is really expensive, especially inpatient treatment. Giving someone unlimited hydromorphone is, economically, cheaper than extended inpatient treatment. The other is that at the population level, even if you have a surplus of inpatient beds, e.g. one available for everyone addict the moment they want it, there are going to be addicts who don't want the bed, and my personal experience (and I am sure some research backs this up) is that one of the big factors in successful treatment is that the patient wants the treatment. You can lock someone on a ward and they won't use drugs, if you can keep them out of the ward---what do they do when you release them?
The lack of inpatient beds is because we have fewer inpatient beds for all purposes than we used to--inpatient beds for all uses peaked in the 1970s and have steadily declined due on the surgery side to better techniques and drugs, and on the "mental health" side (including addictions) due to cost cutting, and also due to the introduction of antipsychotics, which unfortunately do not really help for addicts.
We could probably use a Riverview-sized addictions treatment facility for BC, but there's no way the province would ever enact new taxation to pay for it, or get further into debt every year to fund it, and those are the two options. So instead we get fine phrases.
Addictions treatment is only ever going to take SOME patients out of harm reduction oriented treatment like Rx hydromorphone---it's not going to eliminate harm reduction.
Interesting. I’ve also had experience with dilaudid, in hospital waiting (for 4 days!!!) for surgery on a broken ankle at Burnaby Gen. My ankle didn’t bother me that much, but those pills did nothing for a fierce headache, which I realized later was from caffeine withdrawal from a day habit 😂. I’ve also had medical experience with fentanyl, but it didn’t make me want to go to the street to look for more even though I have a personal history not dissimilar from what you allude to us common for addicted people.
As for the free will argument I agree out will I’d somewhat constrained by a variety of complex factors. Nevertheless there are points in time when we can exercise it. Even Sam Harris, one of the popular proponents of the no-free-will camp has said that lack of free will is no excuse for not trying to go better. Which pretty much obviates his claim.
Well, if people have no free will, this also means they have no freedom to correctly interpret arguments or theses. Sam Harris is...I won't say it, but he has a lot of skin in the game re: certain political issues. And that's not his fault, or something he chose, but it's very clear from how he speaks and writes.
Just hand waving about complex factors doesn't explain the physiological or physical mechanism by which free will comes to be. The "folk psychological" intuition people have, that they choose to do things, is false. Why think that? When we see complex systems of water molecules in a river, eroding cliffs down a mountainside, is our intuition to think "that water and cliff must have free will!"? No, we think that the path the water takes is completely dictated by impersonal forces that cause the water to interact with the cliff face in a particular way.
So even if someone mouths the words "there is no free will" they are rarely willing (pun intended), especially in the political arena, to think through the consequences of their view, especially because we often think that there are "good wills" and "bad wills" so much of the discourse is centered around talking about 'why do criminals have bad wills'? But it's equally the case that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of Government, that is, the individuals that constitute them, have no free will either, so it's not like there is a "choice to make a speed limit" and then a "choice to break it." Neither activity involves free will or choice. But, again, thinking is also not subject to choice.
Rather, we should view all human activity as emerging out of interactions of forces, much like we view the rest of nature. We don't lose anything, especially nor our capacity to punish, etc. because anyone who thinks we can only do those things if "justified" by recourse to volition is wrong, because we don't have volition (in the sense of free will) in the first place. Add in chaos theory, and you don't even get a localized account of volition---a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking and a guy in New York buys a taco instead of a hot dog, to rework an old chestnut.
So, it's not like the boomercons choose to be this way, and it's not like I chose to call them boomercons, it's just how things have evolved.
That argument only goes as far as we have the capacity to comprehend the universe and how it works, which is limited. It's one thing to understand that a complexity of factors result in some people thriving and others failing to thrive. It's quite another to justify leaving suffering addicts to die on the streets, which is what so many "harm reduction" do gooders seem to think is fine.
Why did rules around speed limits, or any other mechanism to enhance social order, come to be? Were they simply random actions by authorities, or were they based on values and social goals that people decided they wanted?
As for Sam Harris, he is a victim of TDS, which was not a result of rational thought or choice, so there's that.
I went to Dover and graduated in 2007. The north end of Nanaimo never used to be the way it is now. We used to walk to the mall after school, meet up with friends behind the fire hall for a hackie sack and it was all good times. I would even feel ok with my kids walking around, to and from Dover. Nanaimo, and all of BC needs to get rid of these policies that are damaging the community. We are glad to get the hell out of there.
Perhaps the writer would care to do some balanced reporting and contact me, the person who has dealt with this issue, a person who has tried to work with Nanaimo council, the NDP government and other decision makers all with the intention of savings lives.
But, these days regardless of country, it appears no one cares to save lives.
Polarizing rhetoric like this does not really help. People have legitimate concerns about street disorder and problematic behaviour. Saving lives is absolutely important. The question is how, with finite economic resources, we can accomplish both, and if we can only do one or the other, which one do we do?
Addicts get a LOT more in Canada than in many countries, so suggesting that no one cares to save lives is silly. I wouldn't say we have a great system, but it's also the case that we can't solve every problem, wipe away every tear.
That said, I don't agree with this boomercon take that harm reduction is failed, based on the standard that it was supposed to eliminate street disorder. It was only ever supposed to reduce fatal overdoses, and it's pretty clear it does that, at least at supervised injection sites. The street disorder problem seems like it is caused by harm reduction, but I bet it is simply because we have more addicts now than ever before. They'd still be milling about somewhere, even without safe supply.
I don't think it really matters much. I've done bits and pieces concerning drug policy for decades, and no one cares. I mean, that is correct, as the guy above says, but it's just because they can't choose to care, so, you know, why does anyone care about anything?
I don't favour any political party, and I 100% support cracking down on street disorder. I am less sympathetic to claims that rich kids are so stupid they can't google the drugs they're using. I mean, maybe they are, but I think that's just them lying so that they don't have to admit "Ya, bruh, we love to party with the opiods even though we KNOWN they're addictive and potentially fatal!" Teenagers lying to their parents/authorities? NEVER!
I think as I said at the top of the thread that we have several issues here that need to be disentangled: street disorder, which should be policed, safe supply, which needs to continue in some form, and the availability of treatment. The problem with the boomercon is that he legitimately believes, not as a sort of pedagogical approach, that you can just force people to do things like take drug treatment and that this works, and is also compatible with the regime of values most of the world (other than the boomercons and, paradoxically, the radical left) have developed over the last century. The world is a lot more complex if solutions like "let's totally remove the agency of this population..." are not on the table.
I am also using the term because this sort of article and the making this into an issue is 100% pandering to a sort of unsophisticated mentality---a spiritual boomer of the conservative variety who confuses the lack of street disorder in the boomer's youth with a stronger regime of enforcement, and if only we could return to that, everything would work out. We simply had fewer people and a MUCH better economy during the era for which the boomers are nostalgic.
I'm not for "cracking down". When I lived in Vancouver there were places people could go, both in the DTES and around Commercial and Venables, some Kettle Society. Whether they could go for a meal or socializing.
The street disorder I see here is people bent over in weird contortions, or weeping, or puking in the street. It's not something to be cracked down on, and it's not crime.
The lack of street disorder in past generations was related to the lower level of addiction and the fact that even addicts could afford rent on welfare payments. You say there is more addiction now. Why do you think that is?
I've often wondered if it would be cheaper on the public purse to offer people--not force them--institutional care where they would be given their hydromorphone, a decent room with their own bathroom, 3 meals plus snacks, but the only way out would be either the street or treatment. That way they could get the healthcare they need before health issues become emergencies.
As for the restaurant that had to close in Duncan, I don't agree with your perspective. This was apparently a thriving business for many many years. A family was bankrupted as a result of the drop off in walk-in business. They had no say in the decision to put the "Wellness" center across the street. I also disagree that a program in which 19/21 clients are selling their dillies for stronger drugs is a success because of the other 2 that aren't. Good for the 2 that are sticking with it, but the effect on the community, and spread of "street disorder" and violence in Nanaimo is a cost that the rest of the community should not be forced to bear. People need to earn the privilege of being able to take their drugs off-site.
Thanks for this reporting Adam.
As a Nanaimo resident near the rich kids of North Nanaimo I also want an end to safe supply in its current iteration.
AS a former BC résident who still has family and friends there, I worry for them. It’s all contributing to the waste of what was a lovely province.
Did anyone really think about the possibilities of the "safe supply" décision?
Excellent work Adam. This won’t end until BC stops voting NDP. And the Liberals are removed. There is no such thing as safer supply, the govt just enables and prolongs their tortured life of addiction, the majority of them are barely functioning outside these “safe supply” sites. This govt coalition refuses to admit their program has failed terribly, but we can all see it with our own eyes, in every city and town when we drive by the crime-ridden safe supply sites. And it’s only getting worse. Safe supply needs to end.
“If you allow the Government to break the law during emergencies, they will create emergencies to break the law.” - This is the fundamental philosophy that is behind the "Safer Supply" agenda. Create a crisis so you can control the "solution". They are deliberately trying to undermine the social order that we have lived under for decades. These are not "good people" making poor decisions.
I read an article by an economist recently about real wages starting to drop in the 1970's, mothers having to go out to work since then, and the resulting stress on women who normally provided emotional support for the family and the children especially who needed her support. He thought the current drug use by the youth was tied to this. That was before 2021 when it became clear that at present the average young Canadian has little hope of owning a home.
True, except real wages dropped because the labour market was flooded with new workers--women who believed that working for someone else instead of their family would free them.
Thanks Sam, this has always been a contentious issue for me and I appreciate you solidifying my stance against it completely.
Thanks, Adam. As many of these investigations and articles as you can possibly complete are how many are necessary. “Safer supply” is not safer for the kid who would not be experimenting/addicted without it, nor is it safer for the “prescriptees” who sell their prescriptions for their preferred Street drugs. Nanaimo certainly is NOT “safer” than it was before this ridiculous government brainwave.
Vote BC Conservative. Change the channel.
Vote Conservative Party of Canada, as well, to rescue Canada from the current incompetent, Marxist ideological loons.
Excellent reporting Adam with insights into a truly tragic public policy.
When we reviewed "safe supply" (Public Supply of Addictive Drugs, link below) last year we summarized papers that talked about diversion. Many authors acknowledged that people sell their drugs. In one paper 19 of the 21 people who received PSAD admitted to diverting their prescriptions (#14 in our Results). The BC Govt is reducing their credibility by denying that diversion is occurring.
Our review identified some important gaps in research, including: "Will PSAD lead to increased diversion creating an expanded illicit market and more cases of OUD and other substance use disorders?"
Few people read our review because it was immediately attacked by advocates for PSAD. Your reporting has helped ensure that important questions don't remain suppressed. Like many others I'm grateful. For anyone interested here's a link to our review:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DVjvG5cgEVmObUb709YjE__VniH9hM7l/view
IMO the big problem with this line of reasoning is that denying the 3/21 (for the sake of argument) who don't divert their hydromorphone a treatment that works for them due to the 19/21 who do isn't ethical and probably not constitutional either.
Part of the problem is the boomercon mentality that drug users are down the totem pole of considerations: this article makes it clear that property values and rich teenagers are more important. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but if addiction is a medical issue, you can't really deny Peter treatment because Paul abuses his medicine.
It's a complicated issue---are we going to end drug prohibition? Nah, too much money tied up in it. In some sense, "safe supply" is a way for the medical cartel to continue its late 19th/early 20th century monopolies over opiods. Maybe that is really the problem, or at least a part of it?
I'm a bit confused about how this "safer supply" works. In earlier years I would occasionally see a young person drinking methadone in front of the pharmacist. This made sense because methadone has a street value, just like "dillies".
Why are addicts provided with dilaudid they can take home? Shouldn't they be expected to take their pills on site?
Also, as a Duncan resident who sometimes drives past the "Wellness and Recovery Center" on York Street, I'm always upset to see the collection of sad people and their carts collected in front. It's like a (very) mini DTES in Vancouver. I know they drove a longterm restaurant out of their location across the street.
Would more treatment beds be part of the answer.
A lot of boomercons don't understand that values like "human dignity" and "agency" and "autonomy" now influence social planning and medicine. It's no longer "parliamentary supremacy" where if the lemmings are convinced to vote for members who enact it, it is law. There's a complex system of human rights and values that govern what is an acceptable government interaction with society, especially vulnerable members of society.
I mean, even your post, OK, a restaurant was driven out of business. Let's presume safe supply does actually help some people---even if it is a net loss at the population level (because diverted supply creates more addicts) maybe a subset of individuals who would otherwise die do not die. Is a restaurant worth more than a drug user?
These are questions that have more complicated answers than this article suggests.
It sounds like your problem isn't really with safe supply, it's with street disorder, and the boomercon mind thinks the two are related. You mention a dozen or so people outside of the clinic---presumably far more people are given Rx for hydromorphone from the clinic. The issue is that street disorder is one problem, and diversion another, and overdose from fentanyl another.
The problem of street disorder is basically all over every large urban area in BC---even Maple Ridge, or Trail or Prince George: drive down the "right street" and there is disorder. So that is a problem that should be solved, but, unfortunately, given the Charter, it's very unlikely the historical "what's your business? Move along then..." situation that prevailed for much of history is ever going to renew itself, absent use of the notwithstanding clause, which is probably not justified.
The problem of diversion is a serious one, and teenagers really shouldn't be using opiods, they're not even fun party drugs. Acid, MDMA, even meth is better than down. This is a serious issue, but, again, I think teenagers are being portrayed as stupider than they really are, telling porkie pies in order to get out of responsibility. Or maybe the TikTok/Cellphone generation is different from the 90s-00s drug dilettante teenager set, where you would go to erowid.org and look up drugs, and read all sorts of things. But I am skeptical, I google "dillies" and the first hit is about hydropmorphone. Maybe these are stupid rich kids dosing these things---but there's only so much you can do in a free society.
Finally, we have the issue of fentanyl of unknown potency. At least some users are using fentanyl patches/hydromorphone as a substitute for street drugs. These people are being helped by this program, so, to take it away because home owners and rich stupid teenagers are more important? I don't think that's a good suggestion either.
So it's a problem on at least three fronts, but it's probably unconstitutional to take away safe supply, it would violate a drug user's right to security of the person. I don't think there are easy answers, and, on the one hand, as a sort of responsible psychedelic dilettante in the old Head vein, I find these street disorder producing junkies loathsome, but, on the other hand, a lot of them have FAS, childhood trauma, learning disabilities, etc. etc. It's hardly like it is their fault. You can't just intern them in treatment either, again, due to the Charter.
I do know that at many conferences with panels with "lived experience" participants, when I ask "whither the LSD or MDMA or other relatively safe and fun drugs?" their eyes bug out. The whole junkie mentality is to get as much junk as possible, and fuck everything and everyone else. I do think there's a bit too much emphasis on junk and junkies. My "lived experience" is that my psychedelic using peers are mostly normal middle class people who like to party on the weekends or at a few festivals a year. That's responsible drug use. In fact, this use pattern is so safe that it practically requires no Government intervention to sustain.
So what do we do? Especially for young people---why in the heck are young people "partying" on down instead of acid, mushrooms, etc? You can grow tons of mushrooms for a few dollars...
I don’t see psychedelics and party drugs as gateway drugs and expect that significant numbers of teens/young adults will experiment with them. Unfortunately too many of these drugs are now corrupted with fentanyl and worse, which can result in serious medical emergencies and even death. Maybe this is more of an issue in the US than Canada.
Have you read Shellenberger’s San Fransicko? In part it’s an exploration of the issues you raise about rights and dignity etc. But it also asks questions about why the people who set policy and provide services to the drug-dependant seem to turn away from deeper questions of human suffering or issues of personal responsibility. Re treatment, my opinion is it should be available at exactly the moment an addict asks for it, not some weeks or months after when a treatment bed is finally available. I am watching Alberta’s approach with interest.
The "gateway" effect works at the population level---I've had family with hydromorphone after surgery, and I had a couple tablets. I didn't have any desire for more, though I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed it. I felt pretty relaxed and calm, had a really good night's sleep. But I also enjoy my life most of the time. If I didn't, I imagine the effect is more pronounced. I also didn't snort it, inject it, etc.
A lot of drug users, and the addiction industry, act like the issue is the substance and that anyone can become an addict. I know people who've snorted cocaine on the weekends for years, never had a problem. I know people who did it one evening on vacation and never had the urge to do it again, even when offered. I also know people who now, if cocaine is mentioned, perk up and go "do you have any??" It's the person AND the drug. Population level studies can't capture that, and will lead to bad policies, when it comes to drugs, IMO.
The broad issue re themes like personal responsibility is that there's no scientific evidence for free will or anything like that, and the materialist view also explains why some people just cannot understand that---it's not a moral failing or even some sort of inability to "see the logic," it's that some people believe in things like free will and personal responsibility even once you show them that people are a mechanism, which has been a theory for 100s of years now, it's nothing new.
The political reason why we have more focus on harm reduction than treatment is twofold: one is that treatment is really expensive, especially inpatient treatment. Giving someone unlimited hydromorphone is, economically, cheaper than extended inpatient treatment. The other is that at the population level, even if you have a surplus of inpatient beds, e.g. one available for everyone addict the moment they want it, there are going to be addicts who don't want the bed, and my personal experience (and I am sure some research backs this up) is that one of the big factors in successful treatment is that the patient wants the treatment. You can lock someone on a ward and they won't use drugs, if you can keep them out of the ward---what do they do when you release them?
The lack of inpatient beds is because we have fewer inpatient beds for all purposes than we used to--inpatient beds for all uses peaked in the 1970s and have steadily declined due on the surgery side to better techniques and drugs, and on the "mental health" side (including addictions) due to cost cutting, and also due to the introduction of antipsychotics, which unfortunately do not really help for addicts.
We could probably use a Riverview-sized addictions treatment facility for BC, but there's no way the province would ever enact new taxation to pay for it, or get further into debt every year to fund it, and those are the two options. So instead we get fine phrases.
Addictions treatment is only ever going to take SOME patients out of harm reduction oriented treatment like Rx hydromorphone---it's not going to eliminate harm reduction.
Interesting. I’ve also had experience with dilaudid, in hospital waiting (for 4 days!!!) for surgery on a broken ankle at Burnaby Gen. My ankle didn’t bother me that much, but those pills did nothing for a fierce headache, which I realized later was from caffeine withdrawal from a day habit 😂. I’ve also had medical experience with fentanyl, but it didn’t make me want to go to the street to look for more even though I have a personal history not dissimilar from what you allude to us common for addicted people.
As for the free will argument I agree out will I’d somewhat constrained by a variety of complex factors. Nevertheless there are points in time when we can exercise it. Even Sam Harris, one of the popular proponents of the no-free-will camp has said that lack of free will is no excuse for not trying to go better. Which pretty much obviates his claim.
.*a cup-a-day habit
**I agree our will is somewhat constrained
Well, if people have no free will, this also means they have no freedom to correctly interpret arguments or theses. Sam Harris is...I won't say it, but he has a lot of skin in the game re: certain political issues. And that's not his fault, or something he chose, but it's very clear from how he speaks and writes.
Just hand waving about complex factors doesn't explain the physiological or physical mechanism by which free will comes to be. The "folk psychological" intuition people have, that they choose to do things, is false. Why think that? When we see complex systems of water molecules in a river, eroding cliffs down a mountainside, is our intuition to think "that water and cliff must have free will!"? No, we think that the path the water takes is completely dictated by impersonal forces that cause the water to interact with the cliff face in a particular way.
So even if someone mouths the words "there is no free will" they are rarely willing (pun intended), especially in the political arena, to think through the consequences of their view, especially because we often think that there are "good wills" and "bad wills" so much of the discourse is centered around talking about 'why do criminals have bad wills'? But it's equally the case that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of Government, that is, the individuals that constitute them, have no free will either, so it's not like there is a "choice to make a speed limit" and then a "choice to break it." Neither activity involves free will or choice. But, again, thinking is also not subject to choice.
Rather, we should view all human activity as emerging out of interactions of forces, much like we view the rest of nature. We don't lose anything, especially nor our capacity to punish, etc. because anyone who thinks we can only do those things if "justified" by recourse to volition is wrong, because we don't have volition (in the sense of free will) in the first place. Add in chaos theory, and you don't even get a localized account of volition---a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking and a guy in New York buys a taco instead of a hot dog, to rework an old chestnut.
So, it's not like the boomercons choose to be this way, and it's not like I chose to call them boomercons, it's just how things have evolved.
That argument only goes as far as we have the capacity to comprehend the universe and how it works, which is limited. It's one thing to understand that a complexity of factors result in some people thriving and others failing to thrive. It's quite another to justify leaving suffering addicts to die on the streets, which is what so many "harm reduction" do gooders seem to think is fine.
Why did rules around speed limits, or any other mechanism to enhance social order, come to be? Were they simply random actions by authorities, or were they based on values and social goals that people decided they wanted?
As for Sam Harris, he is a victim of TDS, which was not a result of rational thought or choice, so there's that.
I went to Dover and graduated in 2007. The north end of Nanaimo never used to be the way it is now. We used to walk to the mall after school, meet up with friends behind the fire hall for a hackie sack and it was all good times. I would even feel ok with my kids walking around, to and from Dover. Nanaimo, and all of BC needs to get rid of these policies that are damaging the community. We are glad to get the hell out of there.
Perhaps the writer would care to do some balanced reporting and contact me, the person who has dealt with this issue, a person who has tried to work with Nanaimo council, the NDP government and other decision makers all with the intention of savings lives.
But, these days regardless of country, it appears no one cares to save lives.
The more dead the better.
Crankshaw Holdings in Nanaimo.
Polarizing rhetoric like this does not really help. People have legitimate concerns about street disorder and problematic behaviour. Saving lives is absolutely important. The question is how, with finite economic resources, we can accomplish both, and if we can only do one or the other, which one do we do?
Addicts get a LOT more in Canada than in many countries, so suggesting that no one cares to save lives is silly. I wouldn't say we have a great system, but it's also the case that we can't solve every problem, wipe away every tear.
That said, I don't agree with this boomercon take that harm reduction is failed, based on the standard that it was supposed to eliminate street disorder. It was only ever supposed to reduce fatal overdoses, and it's pretty clear it does that, at least at supervised injection sites. The street disorder problem seems like it is caused by harm reduction, but I bet it is simply because we have more addicts now than ever before. They'd still be milling about somewhere, even without safe supply.
Would you stop with the “boomercon” language then. It is far more dismissive and high-handed than you perhaps realize
I don't think it really matters much. I've done bits and pieces concerning drug policy for decades, and no one cares. I mean, that is correct, as the guy above says, but it's just because they can't choose to care, so, you know, why does anyone care about anything?
I don't favour any political party, and I 100% support cracking down on street disorder. I am less sympathetic to claims that rich kids are so stupid they can't google the drugs they're using. I mean, maybe they are, but I think that's just them lying so that they don't have to admit "Ya, bruh, we love to party with the opiods even though we KNOWN they're addictive and potentially fatal!" Teenagers lying to their parents/authorities? NEVER!
I think as I said at the top of the thread that we have several issues here that need to be disentangled: street disorder, which should be policed, safe supply, which needs to continue in some form, and the availability of treatment. The problem with the boomercon is that he legitimately believes, not as a sort of pedagogical approach, that you can just force people to do things like take drug treatment and that this works, and is also compatible with the regime of values most of the world (other than the boomercons and, paradoxically, the radical left) have developed over the last century. The world is a lot more complex if solutions like "let's totally remove the agency of this population..." are not on the table.
I am also using the term because this sort of article and the making this into an issue is 100% pandering to a sort of unsophisticated mentality---a spiritual boomer of the conservative variety who confuses the lack of street disorder in the boomer's youth with a stronger regime of enforcement, and if only we could return to that, everything would work out. We simply had fewer people and a MUCH better economy during the era for which the boomers are nostalgic.
I'm not for "cracking down". When I lived in Vancouver there were places people could go, both in the DTES and around Commercial and Venables, some Kettle Society. Whether they could go for a meal or socializing.
The street disorder I see here is people bent over in weird contortions, or weeping, or puking in the street. It's not something to be cracked down on, and it's not crime.
The lack of street disorder in past generations was related to the lower level of addiction and the fact that even addicts could afford rent on welfare payments. You say there is more addiction now. Why do you think that is?
I've often wondered if it would be cheaper on the public purse to offer people--not force them--institutional care where they would be given their hydromorphone, a decent room with their own bathroom, 3 meals plus snacks, but the only way out would be either the street or treatment. That way they could get the healthcare they need before health issues become emergencies.
As for the restaurant that had to close in Duncan, I don't agree with your perspective. This was apparently a thriving business for many many years. A family was bankrupted as a result of the drop off in walk-in business. They had no say in the decision to put the "Wellness" center across the street. I also disagree that a program in which 19/21 clients are selling their dillies for stronger drugs is a success because of the other 2 that aren't. Good for the 2 that are sticking with it, but the effect on the community, and spread of "street disorder" and violence in Nanaimo is a cost that the rest of the community should not be forced to bear. People need to earn the privilege of being able to take their drugs off-site.
Great story. Thanks. I live near downtown Nanaimo and can attest to everything here being accurate.