No more shooting up in public, Vancouver police tell junkies

[SevenSeasJim]

[color:red]Society is changing so fast :wink:

No more shooting up in public, Vancouver police tell junkies

Last Updated Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:41:43 EST

CBC News

Police in Vancouver say they plan to start arresting drug addicts who shoot up in public, an uncontroversial idea in some cities but not in Vancouver.

The police say they want to get drug use out of the streets and doorways of the Downtown Eastside and into the city's supervised injection site.

Supervised injection site

Some addicts and people who work with them call it a dangerous move.

Dr. Anita Palepu, who treats people for illnesses associated with needle drugs, says the culture of open drug use is deeply ingrained in Vancouver's addicts.

She says police are mistaken if they expect to change it just two years after the opening of the injection site, the first of its kind in North America.

She says addicts going through withdrawal can't wait in lineups at the site and she fears the crackdown will prevent them from being treated for communicable diseases.

"I worry, if the police are out there busting people for using drugs openly, people will just get displaced and go to other neighbourhoods where there's actually very little facilities for them."

Police acknowledge that they don't expect that charging addicts will actually result in any jail time. But they say they can't continue turning a blind eye to drug use that's so open on the city's streets.

Inspector Bob Rolls says the aim is to steer addicts to the injection site.

Shooting up "stretched out on the steps"

There are thousands of users in the Downtown Eastside, but other people still have to work and live in the neighbourhood, he says.

He recalls one complaint from a volunteer at a community centre:

"The woman was stretched out on the steps and she was shooting a needle into her neck. When the volunteer complained, she lashed out at her – how dare she interfere with her when she just managed to get this needle in the right position to inject?"

No room at supervised site: addict

Diane Tobin, 54, who shoots up at the injection site three times a day, says the site is already at capacity and it's time to talk about opening another. And because rules state that addicts have to inject themselves, it means people who need help shooting up are out on the street where they face arrest.

"If that cubbyhole is your home and you're sleeping there and all your stuff is there and that's where you're using," she says, "they're actually coming into your home and arresting you for possession of a needle."

Tobin, who served a drug sentence decades ago, says the police plan "is like going back 20, 25 years. It's ridiculous."

[bradm]

While I understand the reasons behind the new policy, I think they're jumping the gun a bit. First, they need to open enough safe injection sites for the number of addicts they have. After this (or as the sites are opening, over the course of, say, weeks or months), the police (or social workers) should have a period of warning people who shoot up in the streets, with the warning including info on the safe injection sites (or the nearest one), and other health info, along with notice that, after a certain date, public shooting up won't be tolerated.

In the period before the "no public shooting up date", monitoring should be put in place, to see how many people are using the sites, and how many are still doing it in public. If the public numbers are declining (enough), then people could start being charged; if the public numbers aren't declining (enough), then the whole system needs to be revisited.

What would Dominic da Vinci do?

Aloha,

Brad

[Birdy]

it boggles my mind that we can sit here and debate the socially correct way of letting heroin addicts know that it is not “okay†to shoot up in public. but i agree with you brad, there does need to be an interim period in which the ‘addicts’ are made aware that their use isn’t going to be tolerated anymore.

no more safe injection sites though. safe injection sites condone usage. here, come in from the cold, get a clean needle, let us belt your frickin’ arm for you. pretty scary that its the government saying these things! yikes. i guess it boils down to prioritization. unfortunately the government tends to prioritize the effects of the drug use and not the drug use itself. i fear more safe injection sites will only bring more zombies out. i vote to abandon ship.

regardless- kudos to the vancouver police. its about time they started to deal with this, appropriately.

[deranger]

Birdy - perhaps you should research the pros and cons of safe injection sites. Many other cities with worse heroin problems have them. Your critisms have been brought forward before and they are knee jerk reactions that don't synch with the reality. Every city in major industrialized nations that have initiated them have seen a reduction in usage.

The concensus on this from police to health workers is this is a health issue and not a criminal issue. We tried locking them up, guess what? It doesn't work. Try criminalizing their behaviour? We tried that for the last 30 years. Guess what? It doesn't work.

Safe injection sites work. Getting over the initial bias and fears is hard, but the results are evident and encouraging. Usage and spread of disease go down.

Edited November 30, 2005 by Guest

[Birdy]

deranger to me it is not a health issue, nor a criminal issue, it is a moral issue.

i wouldn't let a friend belt up in my living room, and i sure as hell don't want to fund thousands of addicts belting up downtown vancouver or any other canadian city for that matter. if you want to stick a needle in your arm to get a high, you can risk the chance of getting HIV or any other disease. i have no sympathy for you, nor should i have to by government decision.

[Velvet]

If it's a moral issue then you are trying to impose your morals on others.

Seems from your last post that to you it's actually a financial issue.

Most people would prefer if the problem didn't exist. I agree. The problem does exist though. What is the solution? Can these people shoot up on the sidewalk in front of your house? Should we build a hundred new jails and fill them up? What?

[Birdy]

better yet, don't build a hundred new jail cells, build a hundred new safe injection sites to litter the streets, manufacture and ship around the country millions of sterile needles, and litter our city's streets with the walking dead. either, or, what's the DIFF?

at least by keeping in tide with drug use being immoral, criminal, etc. we can keep OBVIOUS heroin use off our city streets and go back to the idea of clean neighborhoods.

it's not a financial issue velvet. but if i am to shell out cash towards a cause, i at least want it to be for something i remotely agree with.

[Velvet]

I'm sorry, what was your solution suggestion again?

[Birdy]

personally and as cruel as this sounds i am a big believer of darwin. every man for himself. if i chose a life of crackdom, should i expect you to build me my crack house? how is this "solving" anything?

the definition of what the problem is is getting twisted. spread of disease isn't the problem, it is the result of the problem. we still need to focus on stopping drug use at its root- the needle, the drug.

what happens after we build countless new safe injection sites and have found all of these happy drug users a home to do their drugs in and the funding runs out? what happens then?

it's like the rich kid syndrome, whose parents, instead of helping their child with their problems, threw money at them instead.

c'mon.

[Birdy]

I'm sorry, what was your solution suggestion again?

i never gave a solution. i'm attempting to point out that safe injection sites are not one, nor should they fall in to the category of "well, nothing else has worked".

[bradm]

I don't think there is one solution. Safe injection sites help with one aspect of the problem, namely junkies who will shoot up under any circumstances, including in public and in conditions which will spread disease; safe injection sites also get junkies in contact with medical (and social) professionals, which can be the first step to getting them off drugs.

Yes, imprisonment is another solution (and should be used where appropriate), but it's not the only one (especially given how prevalent illegal drugs are in our prisons).

Aloha,

Brad

[deranger]

I'm sorry' date=' what was your solution suggestion again?[/quote']

i never gave a solution. i'm attempting to point out that safe injection sites are not one, nor should they fall in to the category of "well, nothing else has worked".

by pointing out that safe injection sites are not a solution, you have clearly demonstrated a total lack of knowledge with regard to their effectivness. You have also demonstrated your complete ignorance on the concept of safe injection sites. You seem stuck in the idea that they encourage more drug use. If you spent 15 mintues of research, even online, you would discover that in major cities of Europe, they have seen a DECREASE in heroin use among users after safe injection sites were introduced. Let me repeat: a DECREASE in heroin use. This is fact, not opinion. If they were so ineffective, why has heroin use been going down in those same cities over the years? Wouldn't we expect it to increase?

also, safe injection sites reduce the spread of disease, get the addicts off the streets, remove the need for them top rob for money for drugs, and give health workers the opportunity to speak with addicts and get them the treatment and councilling they need. Addicts don't necessarily enjoy being such. Their addicted because they can't get off the drug.

You figure they'd have access to better treatment and councilling in prison where the heroin is probably better than the street stuff?

[Birdy]

deranger- it is not my style to get personal and tell you that you have a complete lack of knowledge in any area of expertise, or that you are completely ignorant on any topic, as I don't know you, and it would be supercool of you to extend the same respect for me. fortunately, i am not quite the fool that you suppose i am, and i won't take your post to heart, however uncool that it is.

both you and brad have brought up valid points as to the benefits of safe injection sites which i can't dispute. but what's next? are we to supply the drug itself? we might as well! that way we can make sure it's not laced with anything extremely harmful and can cut down on criminal activity such as trafficking.. what a wonderful idea!

statistics don't mean a thing to a person who is morally opposed deranger.

whatever happened to saving people from the dangerous disease of addiction? did we just give up on that?

[Asparagus]

...by pointing out that safe injection sites are not a solution, you have clearly demonstrated a total lack of knowledge with regard to their effectivness. You have also demonstrated your complete ignorance on the concept of safe injection sites. You seem stuck in the idea that they encourage more drug use. If you spent 15 mintues of research, even online, you would discover that in major cities of Europe, they have seen a DECREASE in heroin use among users after safe injection sites were introduced. Let me repeat: a DECREASE in heroin use. This is fact, not opinion. If they were so ineffective, why has heroin use been going down in those same cities over the years? Wouldn't we expect it to increase?

whatever happened to saving people from the dangerous disease of addiction? did we just give up on that?

I didn't think we did, but I suppose a solution won't work if one is morally opposed.

[Birdy]

i suppose not.

i'm old school.. i know.

[deranger]

Sorry, it was just the clear cut statement you made about it not being a solution that I took exception to. IMO it is cleary (as supported by factual evidence) a workable and productive solution to the problem.

"but what's next? are we to supply the drug itself?"

yes, that's exactly what they propose to do. Why? The same arguments against decriminilization apply here, remove the criminal aspect of it and it becomes less and less a societal ill (people being robbed, people giving other diseases, black market economy) and more a health issue, which, whether you agree with it or not, is a more pragmatic and productive apporach.

You asked about addiction. Well, is addiction criminal behavior? How do we approach helping those who are addicted and removing the chance for some to become addicted? Through education. Locking people up for smoking pot is now seen as somewhat ridiculous, whereas not 20 years ago that was the norm. What happened? we realized that smoking pot didn't constitute a criminal act that someone needed to be punished for. The same is now being said of thse who have become addicted to herion. Locking them up doesn't help anyone, and cost us more in prison fees than getting them off the drugs through treatment and councilling. When you stigmatize someone like an addict you make it harder for them to get off the drug, they're less likely to seek help. When they are given the chance to get off the drug without going to prison, we'll have less addicts.

the answer to your question(s), "whatever happened to saving people from the dangerous disease of addiction? did we just give up on that?" Is a tough one. Education and community support has been shown to be the most effective.

By "saving" I take it you mean either don't start or get off drugs? Either way, I respect your moral objection. The same feelings about heroin usage as immoral was said about many other indulgences in the past that went on to become morally acceptable.

I'm sorry to accuse you of being ignorant or having a lack of understanding. I just wanted to clarify what I felt you were misinformed about.

Edited November 30, 2005 by Guest

[bradm]

are we to supply the drug itself? we might as well! that way we can make sure it's not laced with anything extremely harmful and can cut down on criminal activity such as trafficking.. what a wonderful idea!

Actually, you're right, and it has worked. I saw a report about the heroin situation in (IIRC) Edinburgh, especially near the university, and they found that giving addicts (not just anybody, but diagnosed addicts) heroin on prescription levelled off the rapidly-increasing number of addicts. The problem was that someone would start taking heroin recreationally, become dependent, then addicted, and need a lot of money (see below) to support his/her habit, which would encourage them into the "steal or deal" lifestyle, with a lot of them becoming dealers/pushers.

Since heroin is so cheap to produce (it is; it's not that much more expensive than morphine; street heroin is so expensive because addicts are desparate for it, and because penalties for possessing/importing it are so high), giving an addict a prescription dose (IIRC, it was given to them one dose per day, with a heroin solution injected into a cigarette) is pretty cheap, and certainly cheaper than having that addict become a pusher and create more addicts.

And, as with safe injection sites, this is one approach to ridding society of addiction, and it will work for some addicts, and not others.

Aloha,

Brad

[Lazlo]

No more shooting up in public? This sucks really hard. I was hoping to head out west and get some AIDS.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Confound that British Empire. It's all their fault.

And, more seriously, we do have to live with that legacy.

Having known a few people who have wrestled with this themselves, I have to have some sympathy for their plight (notwithstanding that old saw about nicotine being the harder drug to quit). I'll never forget one friend commenting about another that he would make the best possible living object lesson for late-night infomercials - "You want to lose weight? Watch the motivation and determination of this man, as he tries to get to his junk - there is absolutely nothing that will stand in his way as he plunges headlong into his quest."

Knowing who he was talking about, I both chuckled and sighed. Addiction can make a different animal of you.

[Birdy]

I can’t see how decriminalizing heroin will make it less and less of a societal ill considering how lethal the stuff is and how easy it is to overdose. It’s not pot, cigarettes or booze… it actually kills, frequently. Decriminalizing will only shift the onus of responsibility from the hands of the police to the hands of health care providers. I can’t see how that could possibly be more pragmatic.. I mean people will still be using, they just won’t get “busted†for using. As long as heroin remains deregulated, there will still be dealers/pushers, etc.

Most addicts have a history of not looking too fondly towards the “establishmentâ€. The people who we really need to be concerned about aren’t the ones who are able to think that they’re going to casually wander down to main and hastings to get a safe high, they’re the ones who don’t even think about a safe high. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re able to think about the rights and wrongs of heroin use, than you’re able to walk yourself into a rehab clinic. No matter how many tools of recovery you put in someones face, no matter what the mode to recovery may be, if a person doesn’t want to help themselves they won’t. The reason why safe injection sites appear to be working isn’t because of the drugs, its because of the interaction between the drug user and the health care provider- the availability of help. So instead of being so hypocritical, practicing what we preach against, we need to think of an alternative.. something which while probably more costly, will actually be able to reach all of the basement dwellers out there. I don’t know what that is, but its out there.. maybe its in the form of undercover health care workers.. I don’t know. But from a moral standpoint, from an “I’m in favour of deregulation standpointâ€, we need to find it. As Dr. Evil Mouse says, “addiction can make a different animal out of you†and that should not be the governments fault.

[Velvet]

Sorry to sound snarky birdy, but all I keep hearing you say is that you don't think this 'solution' is viable despite what any statistics or experts might think, meanwhile you aknowledge that neither you nor anyone else has come up with a better solution.

I too think people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but I believe there are some drug addictions out there that are strong enough to keep even some good people down. I'm also not content to just have people die in the streets, especially here in country I want to be proud of, so something has to be done. Really, aren't most junkies kids that made a mistake? We all make incredibly stupid mistakes when we're young. Why should some have to pay with their lives?

If you give free or cheap, safe heroin to clinically proven addicts most, and probably eventually all of them are going to take advantage of it. Then there will be no street demand for it except for new or casual users. A dramatic decrease in demand will cause dealers to shift their priorities elsewhere, no? And if the number of dealers selling heroin decreases the number of new or casual users will start declining, a cycle that will unfeed itself, anti-snowballing until heroin is as rare on the street as good hash is in Ottawa. And if the only heroin available is from the free safe spot and you have to already be an addict to get in, well, won't most of those places eventually close down too? A few years ago in Amsterdam the first ever senoir citizen home for heroin addicts was opened.

I dunno, sounds like it could work to me.

I think the biggest bonus of cheap or free heroin is it will eliminate the almost obligatory life of crime/prostitution that comes with junkiedom.

All that said, I think if they open up a free injection site in Ottawa I'm gonna try the stuff.

[Birdy]

you don't sound snarky velvet- i know that i'm not offering a viable alternative and i also know that the 'throw them in jail' routine doesn't work. it's obvious the avant-garde of drug fighting alternatives needs to be introduced.

your idea sounds great - if one was in favour of regulation, but i'm not. the less the government muddles in the better. rather, how about a complete legalisation of the drug outside of government control. instead of selling it say in a HCBO, private not-for-profit companies would be responsible for the manufacture and distribution. the government would collect a tax (of course) on the profit which would keep the non-drug using public happy, while the not-for-profit companies would take the proceeds and put them to use through a greater social network of outreach houses and rehab clinics, again outside of government control. the flooding of the market with reasonably priced, safe dosed heroin would kill the black market and the criminal element, and i, the morally obliged tax payer, wouldn't feel like i was being forced to feed heroin to the drug user. people will be left to their own demise, as they should be, with the proper programs and education facilities in place to combat that demise.

its a long shot i know.. but maybe it could work..

[Velvet]

Another good idea.