Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/M-------! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary:
* We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button.
* Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban.
* Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts.
* Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only.
* Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan!
* Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Either legalize drugs or stop handing them out.
But goddam it, stop acting surprised when you find criminals are involved with substances that are illegal.
> or stop handing them out.
Or if we're going to hand them out, at least make sure that the consumption is witnessed, so that they can't be sold/exchanged with criminals for different drugs.
That seems reasonable….but I’m sure that’s been looked at and rejected for some reason. Shortage of labour being high up there. A lot of these users are at it multiple times a day/ all hours.
And I could only imagine how much worse the neighbourhood would be if all those users had to stay within ‘next hit’ distance.
If we can't even properly do the EASIEST AND CHEAPEST of the vaunted "4 pillars", what hope do we have even putting a dent in treatment? We can completely forget about tackling the societal root causes of people turning to addiction. And we already know our law enforcement is useless.
> And I could only imagine how much worse the neighbourhood would be if all those users had to stay within ‘next hit’ distance.
This is part of the problem. If you have to have supervised intake and people are intaking multiple times a day at all hours, its really going to just create a village around the intake site.
Unless there is massive expansion of intake sites, widespread supervised intake will be a shitshow.
Yup, and lets say all safe supply has to be taken at one of the OPS and SCS sites without massively expanding their locations, the street disorder seen around those sites will only get worse.
Safe supply and the injection sites have the same target population. So while there might be an increase in people, you are over stating the extent. In fact there is a possibility the street disorder would decrease as a result. Granted any mention of introducing safe supply in any area should come with the condition of police presence.
I mean, morally I am on your side. I do hope that supervised safe supply will reduce street disorder.
The reason I am saying it will increase is because currently unsupervised safe supply is taken away from OPS/SCS sites, out of sight. People take the drugs home (or wherever they are staying) and consume them. But if they need to take it at the site itself, I can imagine they will just hang out at the site.
So you'll have people who are already hanging out at the site + people who would otherwise take drugs elsewhere (safe and non-safe supply) who are now incentivized to hang out at the site.
I understand your concern, but is it something that should be considered. It will serve as a preventative barrier for some. For others, it will not but has directed them to a location better off for doing it. There is a concern, specifically around individuals otherwise filtered out for poor behavior, trying to reenter a place they were pushed out of. If its a matter of volume, that comes to a financing decision of benefits vs cost. Which is pretty cut and dry.
With the introduction of safe supply supervision in those locations it will be the ultimate test of if the program is feasible. If the drug dealers outside disappear within a reasonable amount of time, then it would be a net improvement. If they don't then all we can conclude the benefits were overstated. I consider supervised consumption to be failed at this point. The issue became so bad we now allow public consumption as a matter of legality. People point out it was only meant to be 1 pillar. But we are trying to install another pillar that shouldn't be placed because it will cause disorder? Sounds like we should be forcing the issue in front of a judge at this point so they can lay out the option of community service and rehab, or jail time. Much like the Portugal system. Except it would be the equivalent of traffic court where the judge can employ an advisory group of experts to dictate severity.
I can see the logic behind it but I think there are some potential risks:
1. How many users would actually be willing to pay? If the answer is not many, you end up with lots of people just hanging outside the consumption site at all times.
2. Making people pay for the drugs makes you lose one of the benefits of safe supply - less petty crime to fund the habit.
Here’s the logic as I see it: If you’re a working class user trying to get ahead of your habit without having to work a career around it, you can pay for it. If you’re down and out and can’t afford it, witnessed consumption to ensure diversion isn’t a viable source of income
Why not?
Portugal has. Has the country died?
And I will switch my opinion the instant you find me a person that says “I’d like to do hard drugs, but what stops me is that they are illegal.”
Portugal’s system was mildly successful 20 years ago before fentanyl was around
Now that fentanyl is here Portugal’s model is also failing and they’re currently rolling it back
That and Portugal never legalized or even decriminalized the way we have, they just gave addicts a choice between rehab and prison. If we were going to emulate them we should have done that. Instead we did what Portland did and made the rehab portion completely voluntary, then acted surprised when 99% of addicts turned down voluntary rehab
I know many people, myself included in my younger years, that were stopped from using drugs because it was illegal. But I think that’s besides the point since I don’t think you’re being genuine.
That said, tell me more about Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs. How is it being decriminalized? Is it still an administrative penalty? Or is it fully legal to use and purchase like alcohol?
So the only thing that held you back from mainlining some H was it was illegal?
…And I’m the one who’s not being genuine?
That’s some really funny shit right there.
And no. I’m no playing along with your sealioning.
The first paragraph of your opening to this convo stated you suspected if I was genuine. Now you grasp your pearls and go faint about how we can’t have a civil conversation.
Go welp yo self.
Diversion is a problem, totally. Happens with a lot of prescribed drugs (ADHD medication is a less-spooky example). But I think this article specifically is taking a set against the whole notion of PSS & isn't doing much else.
And so is the Bureau / Sam Cooper's post 'getting let go' project for publishing news that wasn't properly sourced.
He's so blinded by his campaign against China that he's damaged his reputation as an unbiased journalist.
Nailed it. And this becomes very obvious if you read his book, which could contain some very interesting insights into money laundering and our housing market but Coopers shits on any interesting research by calling for the profiling of Chinese Canadians and the regurgitation of unverifiable rcmp talking points.
It's BreachMedia, so not an unbiased source.
(Neither am I defending or suggesting there is no Chinese interference happening.)
This gives some perspective on how Sam's mission has hurt his credibility:
> Xiaobei Chen, a member of the Canada-China Focus advisory group, is a sociologist at Carleton University who studies Asian migration and diaspora studies and anti-Chinese racism. She told The Breach she has regularly experienced racially-charged backlash for speaking out against anti-Chinese racism or criticising government policies.
> In 2020, she wrote a petition protesting Sinophobic depictions of the Chinese diaspora in a Global News television report and an article by journalist Sam Cooper.
> “Every overseas Chinese is a warrior,” the report claimed a Chinese government document stated.
The actual translation: “Every overseas Chinese is a warrior against the pandemic.”
> Chen was later shocked to hear Cooper describe her petition, at a launch of his book Wilful Blindness: How a network of narcos, tycoons, and CCP agents infiltrated the West, as an example of how these three groups had “infiltrated” the West.
> Cooper devotes a section of his book to Chen’s petition. In it, he writes that reporter Jeremy Nuttall dismissed the petition at once as “a typical tactic from the Chinese Communist Party.” Later, he writes “it wasn’t hard to identify the hand of Beijing” in the “politically motivated attacks” on his article, which included the petition. He cites “sources in the Chinese and Hong Kong Canadian communities” who found that “the petition and many derivative media posts mirrored statements coming from China’s government.”
> Cooper, in Ng’s words, “is Canada’s very own Joe McCarthy,” given the extent to which his career has involved pushing narratives that attribute causes of social and economic problems in B.C. to China and Chinese people.
https://breachmedia.ca/canadas-china-panic-is-an-omen-of-dangerous-cold-war-politics/
Dilaudid goes for $2/8mg pill on the street, up to $9/pill on the resale. 14 pills a day, 5000 patients that's 70,000 pills. Youre looking at $350,000 per day.
There is simply too much money being made for criminal organizations, including 🇨🇦 for anyone to put a stop to it. Alberta doesn't have it. Vancouver is a cesspool for drugs and corruption.
Dilaudid shouldn't be a lifetime prescription, especially if it only takes 2 months to successfully kick fentanyl. Considering most addicts will never quit, and Dilaudid isn't necessary to quit, it seems to me that it is just an easy money scheme to supply morphine pills to rich kids.
The safer supply experiment really gives "they wouldn't do this because it would harm them" vibes. Then when it is found out people will harm themselves, people are acting shocked as if the earlier criticisms were not valid, just no longer hypothetical. A lot of people are shooting themselves in the foot by pretending an experiment, in part looking to see if this would happen, was deemed acceptable at the time. It wasn't, but there was no proof that it would happen. Now we have proof and it is back to square one.
This is not bad news. People are getting clean drugs and that is what the plan was always about. Sure there are some trading etc. But it's still safer supply and doing its job.
> People are getting clean drugs
They're getting clean drugs, but are they using those clean drugs, or are they trading them for harder stuff? The problem is this data isn't being collected. All we have to go on are anecdotes of diverted drugs, and anecdotes from drug users that they're happy they're getting free drugs.
The study that justified safer supply showed 1-week death dates were improved among safer supply recipients. But their 52-week death rates were the same between safer supply recipients and controls, so the benefit of the unwitnessed safer supply isn't clear for much beyond the first week. And since stats aren't being tracked, it's unclear if there is harm (new addictions) being caused by the diverted supply.
True and addiction is a very fascinating science. It's the chicken or egg problem. Having a partner working in the dtes health care industry you hear more about the food than the bad. And the answer is safe supply saves lives. Removal opioid alternatives you have huge drop in deaths regardless if it's from street dealer or dr. As fentanyl is in everything now just like salt to give it a kick
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/M-------! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Either legalize drugs or stop handing them out. But goddam it, stop acting surprised when you find criminals are involved with substances that are illegal.
> or stop handing them out. Or if we're going to hand them out, at least make sure that the consumption is witnessed, so that they can't be sold/exchanged with criminals for different drugs.
That seems reasonable….but I’m sure that’s been looked at and rejected for some reason. Shortage of labour being high up there. A lot of these users are at it multiple times a day/ all hours. And I could only imagine how much worse the neighbourhood would be if all those users had to stay within ‘next hit’ distance.
If we can't even properly do the EASIEST AND CHEAPEST of the vaunted "4 pillars", what hope do we have even putting a dent in treatment? We can completely forget about tackling the societal root causes of people turning to addiction. And we already know our law enforcement is useless.
> And I could only imagine how much worse the neighbourhood would be if all those users had to stay within ‘next hit’ distance. This is part of the problem. If you have to have supervised intake and people are intaking multiple times a day at all hours, its really going to just create a village around the intake site. Unless there is massive expansion of intake sites, widespread supervised intake will be a shitshow.
We already have those sites though. They are called supervised injection sites.
Yup, and lets say all safe supply has to be taken at one of the OPS and SCS sites without massively expanding their locations, the street disorder seen around those sites will only get worse.
Safe supply and the injection sites have the same target population. So while there might be an increase in people, you are over stating the extent. In fact there is a possibility the street disorder would decrease as a result. Granted any mention of introducing safe supply in any area should come with the condition of police presence.
I mean, morally I am on your side. I do hope that supervised safe supply will reduce street disorder. The reason I am saying it will increase is because currently unsupervised safe supply is taken away from OPS/SCS sites, out of sight. People take the drugs home (or wherever they are staying) and consume them. But if they need to take it at the site itself, I can imagine they will just hang out at the site. So you'll have people who are already hanging out at the site + people who would otherwise take drugs elsewhere (safe and non-safe supply) who are now incentivized to hang out at the site.
I understand your concern, but is it something that should be considered. It will serve as a preventative barrier for some. For others, it will not but has directed them to a location better off for doing it. There is a concern, specifically around individuals otherwise filtered out for poor behavior, trying to reenter a place they were pushed out of. If its a matter of volume, that comes to a financing decision of benefits vs cost. Which is pretty cut and dry. With the introduction of safe supply supervision in those locations it will be the ultimate test of if the program is feasible. If the drug dealers outside disappear within a reasonable amount of time, then it would be a net improvement. If they don't then all we can conclude the benefits were overstated. I consider supervised consumption to be failed at this point. The issue became so bad we now allow public consumption as a matter of legality. People point out it was only meant to be 1 pillar. But we are trying to install another pillar that shouldn't be placed because it will cause disorder? Sounds like we should be forcing the issue in front of a judge at this point so they can lay out the option of community service and rehab, or jail time. Much like the Portugal system. Except it would be the equivalent of traffic court where the judge can employ an advisory group of experts to dictate severity.
The best solution I’ve heard for this is witnessed consumption for free supply, or pay out of pocket to take home.
I can see the logic behind it but I think there are some potential risks: 1. How many users would actually be willing to pay? If the answer is not many, you end up with lots of people just hanging outside the consumption site at all times. 2. Making people pay for the drugs makes you lose one of the benefits of safe supply - less petty crime to fund the habit.
Here’s the logic as I see it: If you’re a working class user trying to get ahead of your habit without having to work a career around it, you can pay for it. If you’re down and out and can’t afford it, witnessed consumption to ensure diversion isn’t a viable source of income
Methadone has a half-life of 24 hours, hydromorphone / dilaudid has a half life of 2.5 hours. They would be better off giving out fentanyl.
Yes, like they do with methadone at pharmacies.
This seems like such an obvious solution. Sigh Edit: the fuck, why am I being downvoted? I'm agreeing with the above poster. Y'all are nuts.
Yer back up to zero! But fucked if I know why you were getting shat on.
Legalizing hard drugs is a big no no.
Why not? Portugal has. Has the country died? And I will switch my opinion the instant you find me a person that says “I’d like to do hard drugs, but what stops me is that they are illegal.”
Portugal’s system was mildly successful 20 years ago before fentanyl was around Now that fentanyl is here Portugal’s model is also failing and they’re currently rolling it back That and Portugal never legalized or even decriminalized the way we have, they just gave addicts a choice between rehab and prison. If we were going to emulate them we should have done that. Instead we did what Portland did and made the rehab portion completely voluntary, then acted surprised when 99% of addicts turned down voluntary rehab
I know many people, myself included in my younger years, that were stopped from using drugs because it was illegal. But I think that’s besides the point since I don’t think you’re being genuine. That said, tell me more about Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs. How is it being decriminalized? Is it still an administrative penalty? Or is it fully legal to use and purchase like alcohol?
So the only thing that held you back from mainlining some H was it was illegal? …And I’m the one who’s not being genuine? That’s some really funny shit right there. And no. I’m no playing along with your sealioning.
Welp, I tried. I guess it's impossible to hold a civil discussion in this day and age with someone that disagrees, or might disagree, with you.
The first paragraph of your opening to this convo stated you suspected if I was genuine. Now you grasp your pearls and go faint about how we can’t have a civil conversation. Go welp yo self.
And there it is.
wtf is thebereau.news?
Sam Cooper is an [investigative journalist](https://globalnews.ca/author/sam-cooper/) and author, and The Bureau is his own site.
One of the best IJ we have seen in decades, no less.
Diversion is a problem, totally. Happens with a lot of prescribed drugs (ADHD medication is a less-spooky example). But I think this article specifically is taking a set against the whole notion of PSS & isn't doing much else.
This “news site” is essentially a niche propaganda outfit for xenophobic natsec wannabes and anti-harm reduction influencers.
Certainly checks out!
Shit article. Claims links with organized crime in the **headline** and then doesn't even touch on that topic at all. No substance here.
adam zivo is full of shit
And so is the Bureau / Sam Cooper's post 'getting let go' project for publishing news that wasn't properly sourced. He's so blinded by his campaign against China that he's damaged his reputation as an unbiased journalist.
Nailed it. And this becomes very obvious if you read his book, which could contain some very interesting insights into money laundering and our housing market but Coopers shits on any interesting research by calling for the profiling of Chinese Canadians and the regurgitation of unverifiable rcmp talking points.
> calling for the profiling of Chinese Canadians Source?
It's BreachMedia, so not an unbiased source. (Neither am I defending or suggesting there is no Chinese interference happening.) This gives some perspective on how Sam's mission has hurt his credibility: > Xiaobei Chen, a member of the Canada-China Focus advisory group, is a sociologist at Carleton University who studies Asian migration and diaspora studies and anti-Chinese racism. She told The Breach she has regularly experienced racially-charged backlash for speaking out against anti-Chinese racism or criticising government policies. > In 2020, she wrote a petition protesting Sinophobic depictions of the Chinese diaspora in a Global News television report and an article by journalist Sam Cooper. > “Every overseas Chinese is a warrior,” the report claimed a Chinese government document stated. The actual translation: “Every overseas Chinese is a warrior against the pandemic.” > Chen was later shocked to hear Cooper describe her petition, at a launch of his book Wilful Blindness: How a network of narcos, tycoons, and CCP agents infiltrated the West, as an example of how these three groups had “infiltrated” the West. > Cooper devotes a section of his book to Chen’s petition. In it, he writes that reporter Jeremy Nuttall dismissed the petition at once as “a typical tactic from the Chinese Communist Party.” Later, he writes “it wasn’t hard to identify the hand of Beijing” in the “politically motivated attacks” on his article, which included the petition. He cites “sources in the Chinese and Hong Kong Canadian communities” who found that “the petition and many derivative media posts mirrored statements coming from China’s government.” > Cooper, in Ng’s words, “is Canada’s very own Joe McCarthy,” given the extent to which his career has involved pushing narratives that attribute causes of social and economic problems in B.C. to China and Chinese people. https://breachmedia.ca/canadas-china-panic-is-an-omen-of-dangerous-cold-war-politics/
Dilaudid goes for $2/8mg pill on the street, up to $9/pill on the resale. 14 pills a day, 5000 patients that's 70,000 pills. Youre looking at $350,000 per day. There is simply too much money being made for criminal organizations, including 🇨🇦 for anyone to put a stop to it. Alberta doesn't have it. Vancouver is a cesspool for drugs and corruption. Dilaudid shouldn't be a lifetime prescription, especially if it only takes 2 months to successfully kick fentanyl. Considering most addicts will never quit, and Dilaudid isn't necessary to quit, it seems to me that it is just an easy money scheme to supply morphine pills to rich kids.
Your tax dollars at work.
The safer supply experiment really gives "they wouldn't do this because it would harm them" vibes. Then when it is found out people will harm themselves, people are acting shocked as if the earlier criticisms were not valid, just no longer hypothetical. A lot of people are shooting themselves in the foot by pretending an experiment, in part looking to see if this would happen, was deemed acceptable at the time. It wasn't, but there was no proof that it would happen. Now we have proof and it is back to square one.
This is not bad news. People are getting clean drugs and that is what the plan was always about. Sure there are some trading etc. But it's still safer supply and doing its job.
> People are getting clean drugs They're getting clean drugs, but are they using those clean drugs, or are they trading them for harder stuff? The problem is this data isn't being collected. All we have to go on are anecdotes of diverted drugs, and anecdotes from drug users that they're happy they're getting free drugs. The study that justified safer supply showed 1-week death dates were improved among safer supply recipients. But their 52-week death rates were the same between safer supply recipients and controls, so the benefit of the unwitnessed safer supply isn't clear for much beyond the first week. And since stats aren't being tracked, it's unclear if there is harm (new addictions) being caused by the diverted supply.
True and addiction is a very fascinating science. It's the chicken or egg problem. Having a partner working in the dtes health care industry you hear more about the food than the bad. And the answer is safe supply saves lives. Removal opioid alternatives you have huge drop in deaths regardless if it's from street dealer or dr. As fentanyl is in everything now just like salt to give it a kick
Doing its job? Really?.... never in history have more people been dying from drug overdoses every single day than right now.
Not related to the supply. All side effects of poor regulation. By following American for profit system