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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
This isn't about writing people off. Writing people off is about letting them rot in the gutter, or pushing them back and forth through the prison system. I am genuinely sorry to hear you have lost people close to you to drug-related issues. I do believe that a program like this offers a chance to people who would otherwise not have had it.
Further, by saying the money that funds the injection site could have gone to funding the rehab program, you are presenting a false choice. It's not about funding one or the other- you fund them both, and they work together. The safe injection site functions as a part of the overall rehab program- it's the first stage, the level at which the program makes contact with the addicts. You can include services typically found in a rehab program- counselling, for example- at the site.
Addiction is a complex problem. A safe injection site is not about the rest of society forgetting about the addicts (out of sight, out of mind), or dehumanizing them as you fear, but about restoring a degree of humanity by recognizing that they are like us, and treating them as such.
Actually it is not a false choice to say that funds used for one program will necessarily take funds from another. The funding for drug programs are finite, and as any addiction counselor will tell you, the problem with rehab isn't customers its beds. Addicts don't need a safe injection site to learn about rehab programs. They are painfully aware of rehab programs and can't get into them due to limited funding. While it would be wonderful to fully fund every social program, there are finite resources for every government especially Canada.
That being said, it is just as much writing people off to let them shoot for death's door or shoot themselves into oblivion in a safe environment, as it is to let them do so in the gutter or locked away in a prison. Insite may be more humane but the final outcome isn't different. The health care providers have made a choice to ease the suffering of these dying people instead of treating their disease. It is a valid choice to make in the health care system, but it requires writing off the life as not worth saving.
I am certain the numbers are good for this program, and I am certain that it will become a model for Canada and perhaps America in time, but that does not change the underlying reality of the program. This is a program to end lives in a tidy fashion, and not to help people overcome their problems. Helping these people to get clean in a safe environment will do more for the people and society than letting them die in a safe environment. But I am sure, letting people die a pleasant clean death out of the view of the citizens of Vancouver is probably very cost effective, and so, economics saves the day yet again.
Fun and Games said: "That being said, it is just as much writing people off to let them shoot for death's door or shoot themselves into oblivion in a safe environment, as it is to let them do so in the gutter or locked away in a prison. "
I think that it's about letting people write off themselves, and I've never felt that it's my business to stop them.
I hardly think do gooders are the problem with drug addiction Ken.
No I rather think the problem with drug addiction is the generations of children raised by grand parents because their parents have made the choice to check out.
I am a Libertarian at heart, but I also believe your unlimited freedom ends at the tip of your nose, and for those whose choices affect everyone around them limits must be set that they won't set themselves.
I don't think locking up and criminalizing sick people is the way to fix the problem, but ignoring the reality of the problem doesn’t solve it either.
People change when they realize they are hurting themselves and those they love. Enabling a behavior only allows that behavior to continue unabated.
I know that drug addiction is like love, because there are many who love their drugs more than their children.
That's the reality of drug addiction, and drug abuse. While it may be all well and good for the academic to maintain scholarly distance, for those who have to face the reality of this sickness every day, a little do gooderism might just be welcomed.
and that is when the american drug companies can make exhorbitant profits from it, because Big Pharma controls America.
Once they find a way to make huge profits from such a program as the Swiss program America will have just such a program.
I wonder how much Salon makes to constantly plug The Wire. I'm a huge fan of the show, but enough is enough.
Mark
I'm a Vancouver journalist and, like most journalists I know, I hope Insite is allowed to continue and expand. But every time a story is printed that exaggerates the success of the injection site, it serves to fuel the arguments being made against it.
The Insite story is a good news story on the facts. Lives have been saved, and there is now a glimmer of hope for a lot of sick people who had no hope before. Perhaps best of all, Vancouverites appear to be supporting the site in ever bigger numbers.
So, please continue to watch this experiment and spread the word, but lay off the hyperbole.
I’m sure a good many Insite supporters cringed when they read your piece this morning. The conservative’s rebuttal almost writes itself.
I recently left Vancouver after 11 years, my mother and sister still live there and in many ways I still think of the city as my home.
Crime, poverty and addiction are shocking and sad, particularly when juxtaposed against the natural beauty and cosmopolitan culture in Van.
Make no mistake, crime is out of hand all across the lower mainland and it is getting worse. I don't think that anyone in Vancouver doubts that when your apartment gets ransacked or your car window is smashed and the contents stolen that drugs are the motivation. It used to be that needles were only found in places like downtowns Blood Alley (yes, that is a real place). My sister lives in a trendy Urban area outside of the downtown core. While on the phone with her last week she looked over her balcony to see the contents of a purse scattered in the alley below. Due to the used needles in the pile we weren't sure if there had been a robbery or if a junkie had simply lost their possessions along the way. She wondered if she should clean it all up and I advised her not to, I know someone who was stuck with a dirty needle while trying to help once. We ended up hoping that the staff of the doctors office on the main floor would take care of it because they have sharp boxes.
It seems that the safe injection site has done some good. I know that I was all for it when I lived there. I'm glad that fewer addicts are dying in the streets, that the spread of infectious diseases has been positively impacted and that rehab is a real and promoted option. But this isn't nearly enough. Vancouver is trying but it needs to do more, I just think that the world is at a loss for realistic, financially viable solutions to this immense problem.
I was back home last month for a visit after being away for over a year. Standing outside a gastown bar I was approached by a trio of ghostly addicts with their hands out for money. My companions politely declined and turned away, the same reaction I used to have. I handed out the cigarettes I'd purchased for the night and wished them luck just before the doormen ushered them back out into the street.
Jayne
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
