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SCC ruling: Insite to stay open


Black Dog

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I don't think the point is to reduce the addicts at all. This is a public health issue. We should be extending this to crack and crystal meth as well to reduce the incidents of TB.

At any rate, everyone but the Federal Government is on side. It's not like there's this wide scale *local* rejection of what's going on. So I don't which "many folks" you refer to, beyond Tories and their supporters.

There are much more important "public health issues" to deal with that deserve the money spent on Insite much more than drug users being given a nice place to get high with air conditioning and pins and tubes with a dedicated team of paramedics to save them when they ride on the wild side.

Of course there is widespread local rejection to Insite. Nobody with any sense wants a congregation point for such trash in their neighbourhood. Just because the CBC doesn't show it to you doesn't mean it isn't there.

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Yeah, since every person living with heart disease lives in a retirement home. I cannot continue this conversation with you. You've gone above my threshold of tolerance for stupidity. I mean that.

You didn't say every person, did you? You said where there's a 10% concentrationa and/or the elderly. Those are called nursing homes. Generally, we put people there that are at higher risk of critical health problems. Feel free to look at Insite as a nursing home for "junkies".

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There is no valid "science" to support any of this "harm reduction" silliness advanced by the left in support of Insite and the SCoC's decision. The only statistics with any validity are the number of overdoses that occurred on Insite premises that received emergency medical intervention that would have otherwise likely killed the drug user. Some of us may not consider that a useful public benefit, anyways. We have ordinary Canadians dying while they wait too long to receive the medical care they need, while we provide drug users with their very own personal emergency response team should they shoot up too much heroin. It's unfathomable.

Here is what I witness - a harm reduction social worker - walking down the street with her ward - a young and partially destroyed female crack addict...fine - but then a native pulls up on a bike - they stop and talk a minute - the native hands some crack to the addict in the presense of the governmental worker - who witnesses drugs being trafficed and grants offical approval of this illegal act....so - if the SCC believes it is okay to supply a facilty with clean needles - then how would they feel about the trafficing in narcotics - that is needed to fill said needles - how would they rule on the legality of the selling of dope - I guess that would become a human right for the dope dealer - that might suffer undue stress and poverty if he did not push dope?

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Of course there is widespread local rejection to Insite. Nobody with any sense wants a congregation point for such trash in their neighbourhood. Just because the CBC doesn't show it to you doesn't mean it isn't there.

The neighborhood they're in is right where drug users are at, taking drugs on the street and lying in alleyways, passed out. So the centre actually takes them off the street, helping clean up the neightbourhood so kids don't have to see that. And they collect the syringes for proper disposal. That gets rid of a lot of otherwise potentially harmful used syringes.

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Here is what I witness - a harm reduction social worker - walking down the street with her ward - a young and partially destroyed female crack addict...fine - but then a native pulls up on a bike - they stop and talk a minute - the native hands some crack to the addict in the presense of the governmental worker - who witnesses drugs being trafficed and grants offical approval of this illegal act....so - if the SCC believes it is okay to supply a facilty with clean needles - then how would they feel about the trafficing in narcotics - that is needed to fill said needles - how would they rule on the legality of the selling of dope - I guess that would become a human right for the dope dealer - that might suffer undue stress and poverty if he did not push dope?

You don't understand how difficult it is to be a social worker, to try and make friends with someone who is an addict and in desperate trouble. They need to find a way to persuade them, make them believe that they have the will to quit. To simply condemn or admonish the user in that moment would have been useless. They would stop seeing the social worker, and carry on using the drugs, alone.

No social worker would grant "official approval", but they may have avoided being judgmental at that moment. They would have known how bad it is for the partly-destroyed crack addict to get more crack. Their job is not to condemn but to convince the addict to get help.

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The neighborhood they're in is right where drug users are at, taking drugs on the street and lying in alleyways, passed out. So the centre actually takes them off the street, helping clean up the neightbourhood so kids don't have to see that. And they collect the syringes for proper disposal. That gets rid of a lot of otherwise potentially harmful used syringes.

The point is that the Insite project will continue to grow, and now we'll begin to see this crap pop up all around the country, coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Don't you get that?

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There are much more important "public health issues" to deal with that deserve the money spent on Insite much more than drug users being given a nice place to get high with air conditioning and pins and tubes with a dedicated team of paramedics to save them when they ride on the wild side.

Still with the bullshit false choice?

You might have a point if the cost of funding InSite was greater than the costs incurred by the health care system if the service was not provided. But I expect you know very well that the costs would be much higher without it, seeing as how we don't live in your dream country where everyone is a complete asshole. Here, the system actually doesn't just leave people to die in the gutter when that outcome can be prevented.

Sure, two million on InSite has opportunity costs. But the same could be said about many health care related spending and all non-essential non health care spending (say, new fighter jets). yet there's nary a peep from you on that score.

And now the SCoC is in on it, with the full support of dedicated leftists like yourself who feel that drug addicts are now entitled to services that other Canadians don't receive.

I wasn't aware there were a lot of non-drug addicts who required supervised injection sites. Diabetics?

The point is that the Insite project will continue to grow, and now we'll begin to see this crap pop up all around the country, coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Don't you get that?

The only places SIS will "pop up" are in places with high concentrations of IV drug users. They won't be coming to the nice neighbourhoods you wish you lived in.

Edited by Black Dog
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The point is that the Insite project will continue to grow, and now we'll begin to see this crap pop up all around the country, coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Don't you get that?

I do get that, and am looking forward to the benefits it will provide, our society.

One that is based on love, compassion, understanding and healing. Not hate, apathy, fear and punishment.

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You don't understand how difficult it is to be a social worker, to try and make friends with someone who is an addict and in desperate trouble. They need to find a way to persuade them, make them believe that they have the will to quit. To simply condemn or admonish the user in that moment would have been useless. They would stop seeing the social worker, and carry on using the drugs, alone.

No social worker would grant "official approval", but they may have avoided being judgmental at that moment. They would have known how bad it is for the partly-destroyed crack addict to get more crack. Their job is not to condemn but to convince the addict to get help.

All of my friends in high school became social workers - half of them were let go for taking advantage of the weak...the rest went on to become coke heads ...out of the five - mabye one was fit for the job. The social worker I mentioned should have chased off the drug dealer - If you or I were say some sort of child care worker - and someone approached one of our wards..with a beer - it would be responsible to tell the jerk corrupting the kid - to F off and get lost - that makes sense and that would be good judgement.

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I do get that, and am looking forward to the benefits it will provide, our society.

One that is based on love, compassion, understanding and healing. Not hate, apathy, fear and punishment.

I don't hate junkies or crack heads - they are just a lot of work - In my back alley I see them lurking about near my rear entrance....they monitor my coming and going - I have to stare them down in order to intimidate them - IF I do not - they will break into my home and perhas steal anything of value or that envelope with the rent money....WHY do I have to constanly be on guard - that some sick drug addicted wreck is going to damage MY existance? I am sick of babysitting those that are driven by the evils of addiction...If the court has deemed that drug addicts have the right to injest the stuff - let them also supply the stuff _ so I don't have to fucking worry for my security and safety. If you want harm reduction - you must also reduce the harm caused by addicts that harm normal people through crime - So the SCC is willing to give them the needles - but not the dope - how cheap is that?

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I love this, the barely literate leftist tells me to "mind my own business" as if somehow he's more Canadian than I am, and tells me that everything is just fine and dandy with the Canadian healthcare system.

BS bob, at it again. No one said its just fine and dandy.More bs from bob.

1 Yeah, it's sure easy to get a family doctor in Ontario right now. 2It only takes a few days to see most specialists. When going to the emergency room there's no need to bring a book and a pillow. 3 MRIs and CAT scans are available within days. 4 Yeah, everything is peachy and only getting better. 5 Remember, McGuinty told us that medical wait times are going down, so it must be true! 6 Apparently Ontario also has the shortest wait times in Canada, because McGuinty said so!

1-Took me a day. But it isnt easy. Someone say it was?

2-if one needs it, yes. How would you know, ex-friends Of muslim persuasion w one leg and rainbow hair?

3-anyone say they were? More bs huh bob?

4-not peachy but it is getting better.

5-apparently they are. want to show us they arent?

6-again...

pathetic, attribute things to this duscussion that werent said.

We've had Bahgdad Bob and now we have bullshit bob.

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BS bob, at it again. No one said its just fine and dandy.More bs from bob.

1-Took me a day. But it isnt easy. Someone say it was?

2-if one needs it, yes. How would you know, ex-friends Of muslim persuasion w one leg and rainbow hair?

3-anyone say they were? More bs huh bob?

4-not peachy but it is getting better.

5-apparently they are. want to show us they arent?

6-again...

pathetic, attribute things to this duscussion that werent said.

We've had Bahgdad Bob and now we have bullshit bob.

Any one who belongs to a club like Bob does - does not think for himself....he's on zioauto.

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I don't hate junkies or crack heads - they are just a lot of work - In my back alley I see them lurking about near my rear entrance....they monitor my coming and going - I have to stare them down in order to intimidate them - IF I do not - they will break into my home and perhas steal anything of value or that envelope with the rent money....WHY do I have to constanly be on guard - that some sick drug addicted wreck is going to damage MY existance? I am sick of babysitting those that are driven by the evils of addiction...If the court has deemed that drug addicts have the right to injest the stuff - let them also supply the stuff _ so I don't have to fucking worry for my security and safety. If you want harm reduction - you must also reduce the harm caused by addicts that harm normal people through crime - So the SCC is willing to give them the needles - but not the dope - how cheap is that?

I understand, and agree your rights are not being protected. Prohibition has only exacerbated the problem by giving power to organized crime, rather than letting junkies get clean dope through some other, legitimate means.

Technically speaking we do not want them to continue using dope, so that in itself would not be enough, to just provide them drugs. We need to provide some meaningful avenue to escaping what they have done to themselves.

Let us begin by separating them from the criminals who take advantage of their addiction, those we seek to keep them addicted for their own material gain. Once they come out of the alley and into the light, and not hated or condemned by society, we have the first step. Then there is a chance. At the moment what we have is an epidemic, which has become a health emergency (it was declared so in BC).

Prohibition has accomplished nothing. The drug war is lost, and only fools continue to believe in it. Fools, and callous manipulators.

That is why Harper's ideology on punitive measures for drug abusers must be stopped.

Edited by Sir Bandelot
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The point is that the Insite project will continue to grow, and now we'll begin to see this crap pop up all around the country, coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Don't you get that?

Your attitude is the same as all the prohibitionists, and history has proven you to be wrong. That is why we must change things. Drug users are just people who are oppressed by the wealthy elite. They are the enemy, not drug users. That is why we must begin by teaching the young ones. So that the next generation will understand the real problem of drug users, and who the enemy is truly.

Here in my city we have begun such a campaign, and it is being promoted in all the schools. Right from kindergarten...

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Your attitude is the same as all the prohibitionists, and history has proven you to be wrong. That is why we must change things. Drug users are just people who are oppressed by the wealthy elite. They are the enemy, not drug users. That is why we must begin by teaching the young ones. So that the next generation will understand the real problem of drug users, and who the enemy is truly.

Here in my city we have begun such a campaign, and it is being promoted in all the schools. Right from kindergarten...

They are teaching kindergartners that the wealthy elites are the enemy?

Whoa! Can't wait to see what they bring to the table when they are adults... :D

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I have no clue what you're saying Shwa.

OK, fair enough. Here is what you say:

I agree. Basically, I don't think it's within the SCoC's mandate to re-write laws or strike them down strictly on the basis that they don't reflect public opinion. Public opinion changes over time on any given issue which impacts the lives of citizens. It's up to lawmakers to put forth legislative amendments to defective or outdated laws, as demanded by citizens through their elected representatives.

So I guess I am asking you what should laws be based on if not public opinion? From my view, public opinion has been writing and re-writing laws for as long as recorded human history and likely a little longer. There is precendence built into some of the longer lasting systems of justice, of course, but by and large laws generally reflect that of the public. As they ought.

Take the age of consent or capital punishment as your example.

As the highest court in the land, the SCC is the exact sort of instrument to write or re-write those laws. That is why we ask them questions and they provide us with their opinions.

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I understand, and agree your rights are not being protected. Prohibition has only exacerbated the problem by giving power to organized crime, rather than letting junkies get clean dope through some other, legitimate means.

Technically speaking we do not want them to continue using dope, so that in itself would not be enough, to just provide them drugs. We need to provide some meaningful avenue to escaping what they have done to themselves.

Let us begin by separating them from the criminals who take advantage of their addiction, those we seek to keep them addicted for their own material gain. Once they come out of the alley and into the light, and not hated or condemned by society, we have the first step. Then there is a chance. At the moment what we have is an epidemic, which has become a health emergency (it was declared so in BC).

Prohibition has accomplished nothing. The drug war is lost, and only fools continue to believe in it. Fools, and callous manipulators.

That is why Harper's ideology on punitive measures for drug abusers must be stopped.

A while back I made friend with a neighbour at my last address - the street was upscale and gentrified. The woman in question was one of the origninals - Her family had lived their for two generations. She had been using crack for over 25 years. What she told me was the best she could do was manage the addiction. Eventually her mother died - and she and her son were cut out of the inheritance - because of the dope problem...she was actually a very fine woman - kind and loving- but she was sick...and all the programs that existed did nothing - but keep her sick...eventually I saw her going to a mission for food - she was drug free...it took place through her own determination - not some ruling or governmental program - she simply wanted to live.

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Guest American Woman

With other health care issues needing reform, I do question putting money into helping addicts stay addicts. If this were mandatory rehab, I would be unquestionably supportive. It's not that I don't feel for the addicts or think they are the scum of the earth, so no accusations please (I realize they are addicts and addiction is an illness) - but I think a legitimate comparison would be 'if there is only one heart (or lungs) available for transplant and two people equally in need,' do you give it to someone who smokes two packs a day (also an addict) or to a non-smoker? I'm under the impression that the non-smoker would be ahead of the smoker on the list because he/she has the greater success outlook. In other words, the smoker is given less opportunity to a chance to live. Is this unfair?

Edited by American Woman
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With other health care issues needing reform, I do question putting money into helping addicts stay addicts

Now you're just trolling.

If this were mandatory rehab, I would be unquestionably supportive.

Mandatory rehab doesn't work. People don't change when they're forced to go to rehab. They have to want to go to rehab. It's status quo to force someone that uses drugs and alcohol into treatment when they're convicted of a crime anyway. It doesn't do a damn bit of good, unless the person feels they've hit the bottom and want to change for themselves.

It's not that I don't feel for the addicts ... so no accusations please

I can accuse you of whatever I believe is logically sound. When you continue to support closing the clinic in the face of the research that shows the benefit and a Supreme Court Decision that expounds on how blocking their application for exemption under the CDSA infringes on people's section 7 charter rights, then yeah... it's easy to see how you don't feel for addicts.
(I realize they are addicts and addiction is an illness) - but I think a legitimate comparison would be 'if there is only one heart (or lungs) available for transplant and two people equally in need,' do you give it to someone who smokes two packs a day (also an addict) or to a non-smoker? I'm under the impression that the non-smoker would be ahead of the smoker on the list because he/she has the greater success outlook. In other words, the smoker is given less opportunity to a chance to live. Is this unfair?

The Supreme Court decision mentions that the "cost/benefit is favourable" when it comes to this clinic. So, yet again, you ignore the evidence that has already been gathered by researchers and tout your ideological hatred for "junkies".

Perhaps, as bush_cheney is always saying, you should worry about your own country.

Edited by cybercoma
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Read that far and stopped. What makes you think I'd be interested in discussing this with someone accusing me of trolling?

You're not interested in discussing anything with anyone that is the least bit informed. You have absolutely nothing to support your completely ridiculous claim that Insite is "helping addicts stay addicts." Maybe you should just stop discussing this topic altogether, since you obviously are not informed and have absolutely no interest in being informed.
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Bad news for people who say the science supporting insight is clear:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/05/barbara-kay-the-supreme-court-used-flawed-data-to-make-its-insite-decision/

However, an anti-drug watchdog group vigorously contests these findings. In an analysis of The Lancet study commissioned by the Drug Prevention Network of Canada and Real Women of Canada, an international team including three Australian doctors, B.C. drug-prevention expert Colin Mangham and Dr. Robert Dupont, president of the U.S. National Institute of Drug Abuse, allege that The Lancet study’s findings of decreased deaths in the Insite area are not supported by data from the British Columbia Coroner’s office, which indicate that deaths from drug overdoses in the area around Insite not only did not decrease, they in fact increased between 2002-2007 (see graph to the left).
Amongst other allegations, the watchdog group contends that the Lancet researchers, some of whom have advocated for Insite since the 1990s, manufactured an appearance of overdose mortality reduction by including 2001 data in their pre-Insite comparison years, without stipulating that 2001 was a year of unusual heroin availability. They were well aware of the anomaly, since it was the subject of two previous journal articles by three of The Lancet article’s researchers. The analysts further maintain that the UBC researchers failed to note that 41% of B.C.’s overdose fatalities are not even injection-related.
I think it is time for an update to that old saying:

"There are lies, damned lies and peer reviewed studies".

If someone if pushing a political policy based on a scientific study the best position to take is to assume the data has been manipulated to support the politics until proven otherwise.

Edited by TimG
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