In West Van it's indoors. East Side it's outdooors. no difference there are still junkies in equal quantity.
Lets go down there with a bag of sandwiches, note pad and camera and we'll ask them what they need to help themselves. Deal?
Insite Given Exemption By SCoC
- Thread starter petros
- Start date
Lets go down there with a bag of sandwiches, note pad and camera and we'll ask them what they need to help themselves. Deal?
Help often means keeping them alive long enough for someone to get through to them. Again, I know because I've gone through watching someone dangle at death's door because of addiction.
Confronting them at injection sites means they'll stop coming to the injection site. Which puts them right back into harm's way. Leaving them be, letting them get their fix, and letting the community work on the rest is as much as we can ask for.
No... we keep providing them help. We don't put them in jail for being perpetually suicidal, and we don't lock people up just for being addicts either.
Karrie, I think that you'll find that if someone was making multiple attempts at suicide, the courts would approve of forced medical treatment in a medical facility, but essentially imprison the individual. What Insite is really doing is enabling these folks and it's (sadly) only a matter of time before the addict falls for the final time from an overdose, exposure to risk of violence, medical related concerns or mental health issues (ie suicide).
Fact is, Insite can attempt to offer some form of passive counseling prior to the individual getting high, but any value in that is lost the moment that narcotic kicks in.
Granted, it is an unrealistic anecdote, but the gravity of the (relative) consequences are the same.
People institutionalized for any significant length after suicide attempts in Canada are there voluntarily. They can only hold you for an assessment period for virtually any mental issue, unless you prove to be a constant danger to OTHERS. Simply being an addict is not grounds to be jailed or institutionalized. Trust me, I've done this through the courts.
It's been proven to have a serious impact on the negative health risks of intravenous drug use. a serious impact.
I'm someone Tonnington converted on this issue.
Not really.
I agree that drug use is dangerous. But between the healthy environment, clean needles, and onsite counseling. Insite is having a proven positive effect.
So much so, the SCC saw fit to give them an exemption.
Yeah, 9 people they saved last year. 9. Wow! Look at those stats back this thing up!
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/unsafe-insite/1193018
How many people can we save if we lock them up for an extended period of time? More than 9.
And being permissible towards every single lifestyle is also telling people how they should live - without consequences.
How many cases of HIV and HepC were prevented? How many ODs handled medically before they resulted in death? How many people didn't see them cranking up in the street?
Some, but how many will go on to get infected eventually? I doubt junkies use clean needles literally every single time.
9! 72 total! What a huge dent in the problem eh?!
alley, what part of the fact that you CAN'T lock them up just for being addicts, aren't you getting? Trust me on this one. You CAN NOT under the Canadian Charter, lock someone up for addiction.
alleywayzalwayz; None of these people made a conscious choice to destroy their lives - [B said:
That is just plain silly. I'll bet less than 1% deliberately chose to ruin their lives. Some reacted to peer pressure, some reacted to bad nerves, some reacted to chronic depression/ sadness, some reacted to failure/ non acceptance, some reacted to mental and physical pain, some thought they needed something to loosen up for social situations, etc. etc. etc.
Especially as addiction isn't a crime! :smile:
People have to remember there is a huge difference between the rich addict (Betty Ford) and the poor addict.
They get a fresh needle every poke at insite and if they are going to use it again they get a bleach kit to clean it. A dent is a dent. 1 life is equal to 100,000. How many people do you know who abuse perscription drugs that you and I pay for out of pocket?
I'm not being permissible, I'm being realistic, and using commonsense. I abhor drug addiction, but I can not and will not dismiss the benefits Insite, has proven to promote in health and public safety.
Maybe if you could separate your ideology from issue for a minute, you might be able to understand that.
My guess is that some people perceive members of society with a weakness as lesser members of society. :smile: