2 reasons why homelessness and addiction will never be eradicated in Vancouver DTES

Danbones

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 23, 2015
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Guess they can't have the employees going homeless in the high rent part of the world
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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1 babysitting job for every 2.9 homeless persons.*


*Based on a recent count for the entire Metro Vancouver region.

It's an Industry
 

Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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2 reasons why homelessness and addiction will never be eradicated in Vancouver DTES

They locked up Willy Picton?
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
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How about because selling drugs and fixing addicts is a growth industry? (meant to steal billions from the taxpayers when you consider how much the war on drugs costs each year and they still haven't found out the CIA runs the whole fuking show.
How's that for a sound investment??
 

Danbones

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Sep 23, 2015
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Not to mention the doctors and the pill epidemic, and the recently exposed faulty logic they use to justify addictive prescriptions to the public

"Not long ago, doctors in the U.S. prescribed narcotics mostly for short-term pain, like the kind that people experience after a surgery, or for pain related to cancer or to the end of life.

Then came two small accounts in medical journals that helped lay the groundwork for an expanded role for prescription narcotics. The first, a hundred-word letter to the editor published in 1980 in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported that less than one per cent of patients at Boston University Medical Center who received narcotics while hospitalized became addicted.

The second, a study published in 1986 in the journal Pain, concluded that, for non-cancer pain, narcotics “can be safely and effectively prescribed to selected patients with relatively little risk of producing the maladaptive behaviors which define opioid abuse.” The authors advised caution, and said that the drugs should be used as an “alternative therapy.” They also called for longer-term studies of patients on narcotics; we’re still waiting for those to be performed.

At around the same time, the companies that manufactured these narcotics—including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Endo Pharmaceuticals—began to aggressively market their products for long-term, non-cancer pain, including neck and back pain.

They promoted their prescription narcotics to doctors through ads in highly regarded publications, and through continuing-education courses for medical professionals. They also funded non-profits such as the American Academy of Pain Management and the American Pain Society—the latter previously headed by Dr. Russell Portenoy, a co-author of the Pain study and a proselytizer for expanded narcotics prescribing.

The American Pain Society published guidelines that advocated for doctors to expand their use of prescription narcotics to relieve pain."
Who Is Responsible for the Pain-Pill Epidemic? | The New Yorker
 

Hoof Hearted

House Member
Jul 23, 2016
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Seen this movie before...

In 2008, Bono's ONE Charity Campaign for Africa, took $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists, of which a thrifty $184,732 was distributed to charity. More than $8m was spent on executive and employee salaries.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Patients who think "more is better" is a big factor. After a double dose trying to beat pain a single Rxed dose loses it's effectiveness.

Opiate Rxes aren't to eliminate pain but to make it bearable. When used as Rxed it works.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Seen this movie before...

In 2008, Bono's ONE Charity Campaign for Africa, took $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists, of which a thrifty $184,732 was distributed to charity. More than $8m was spent on executive and employee salaries.
Read the link posted and some of the salaries paid. One of the agencies in the article, Rain City Housing is BCGEU. Unions hate losing dues paying members.

RainCity Housing and Support Society provided three emergency shelter plus housing for people with mental illness and addictions in 2011, generating $13.5 million in revenue. Of that, $11.8 million came from various levels of government.

One RainCity employee was paid between $120,000 and $159,999, with two others collecting between $80,000 and $119,999. There were 91 full-time and 68 part-time positions.
 

Mokkajava

Electoral Member
Nov 14, 2016
250
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Saskatchewan
I volunteered in the downtown eastside for a number of years... around the time Picton was at his height as a murdering John... and I realized then how horrible the charities were for trying to get their "piece of the funding pie" as I used to say. They were all very protective of their activities and none wanted to collaborate to provide better services or help to those in need. I came to see it as a vicious cycle ... jaded me quite a bit.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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I volunteered in the downtown eastside for a number of years... around the time Picton was at his height as a murdering John... and I realized then how horrible the charities were for trying to get their "piece of the funding pie" as I used to say. They were all very protective of their activities and none wanted to collaborate to provide better services or help to those in need. I came to see it as a vicious cycle ... jaded me quite a bit.

Like any other industry nobody wants to lose their job.
 

bill barilko

Senate Member
Mar 4, 2009
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The funny (not the best term but it's one I'll use) part of the situation is that the organisations doing the most high profile Do-Gooding are the poorest ones the small independent 'ministries/god botherers' who at least are feeding the junkies/tweakers when they (occasionally) need a meal.

Those outfits are jammed into the cheapest buildings/look run down from the outside and obviously don't have two nickles to rub together and you only notice them because of the lineups at certain times of day.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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The funny (not the best term but it's one I'll use) part of the situation is that the organisations doing the most high profile Do-Gooding are the poorest ones the small independent 'ministries/god botherers' who at least are feeding the junkies/tweakers when they (occasionally) need a meal.

Those outfits are jammed into the cheapest buildings/look run down from the outside and obviously don't have two nickles to rub together and you only notice them because of the lineups at certain times of day.

The $98.1M is more than enough to rehab and house the whole filthy lot of them but it will never happen. It's a profitable industry with Govt Union workers.
 

Kathie Bondar

Kathie Bondar
May 11, 2010
230
1
18
Calgary, Alberta
The funny (not the best term but it's one I'll use) part of the situation is that the organisations doing the most high profile Do-Gooding are the poorest ones the small independent 'ministries/god botherers' who at least are feeding the junkies/tweakers when they (occasionally) need a meal.

Those outfits are jammed into the cheapest buildings/look run down from the outside and obviously don't have two nickles to rub together and you only notice them because of the lineups at certain times of day.
When it comes to the narcotics issue, producers, importers, users, law enforcers, why is not decisive government action to eradicate it? Big business, big profits. If suddenly by some miracle the problem disappeared, what would all the medical people, all the law enforcers currently employed in secure jobs applying bandaid solutions would do?
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,183
14,241
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Low Earth Orbit
When it comes to the narcotics issue, producers, importers, users, law enforcers, why is not decisive government action to eradicate it? Big business, big profits. If suddenly by some miracle the problem disappeared, what would all the medical people, all the law enforcers currently employed in secure jobs applying bandaid solutions would do?

Fentanyl
 

Danbones

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 23, 2015
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Just found out we had a pill person slit their wrists and passed away day before yesterday in his room in town, and we had two almost fatal OD's at the shelter I volunteer security at ( they got them in time ). We just got some government funding after being strictly charity for 12 years, and just started in a new building last month after three years of working to get it.Everyone is still learning about its blind spots.

We still run the soup kitchen from charity and the guests pay a buck a meal. It's a collection of all the various local church members, and just people from the area.

But even in a small town we are seeing the pills, and the crack, and the heroin, but its mostly the pills and alcohol, that give us the most trouble, which the government and corporations profit hugely from, with very small consequence.

The opiates are the worst killer out of the street drugs these days in large part because Doctors miss read a study 30 years ago, which indicated addiction took much less then it does, so they erred for the sake of profits.

The people on disability often finance their "1/4 below the poverty line" income selling pills, and there are a lot of different kinds of them out on the street...

IMHO, the corporate and government and civil servant profits are 90 percent of the problem.
It has been monitized.
 
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petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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The people on disability often finance their "1/4 below the poverty line" income selling pills, and there are a lot of different kinds of them out on the street...

In this linked story a cop goes undercover in a wheelchair after reports of disabled being robbed (I was going to say "rolled" but...)


Undercover Vancouver Police officer Mark Horsley uncovers kindness in Downtown Eastside - British Columbia - CBC News


In his experience he claimed people were kind and giving but the hard fact is, he wasn't selling his prescribed opiates to make ends meet trying to survive on the measly $920 BC pays disabled people who can't work. If he were truly trying to get the real picture, he'd have to be selling his Rx.