I would like to applaud the Government for once again taking on the issue of the safe heroin injection sites in downtown Vancouver; where we attempt to treat heroin addiction by helping people shoot up. I spent two years working the graveyard shift at GM Place, and spent quite a lot of time in close proximity to the same people who are getting "help". Trust me; we are not helping these people by enabling a destructive addiction. It is insane that these sites exist, the people it facilitates are not functioning members of society, and neither will they become functional while we are getting them high.
There are other options for addiction treatment that do not include helping people shoot up. In the field of addiction recovery, I have to give credit to the Church. Virtually everyone I have met who have overcome serious addiction to become functioning members of society are graduates of the Church program. There are options available to addicts who would like a normal life, and those who do not want to be helped cannot be helped. If people choose to destroy their lives, it is not something we should be enabling. Personally I blame Liberal Senator Larry Campbell.
Enabling is not helping.
I doubt it classifies as "enabling". They'll get the smack illegally anyway (Insite doesn't provide it), they can buy needles or share them. So the only difference it makes (objectivgely) is preventing needle sharing and a few deaths from OD.
ReplyDeleteNow subjectively we could hit a better argument for insite. When they come to shoot up, counsellors and people who help others get off the junk will have greater access to the addict. A word by a counsellor at Insite could do much more than a billboard proclaiming "say NO to drugs".
I don't think it was really ever intended as a "help" place. It was rather a harm control system, trying to reduce some of the problems associated with drug use.
I still think it's a bad principle, but certainly not something to wage war with a province over.
They may not provide the smack, but it does create a focal point where the dealers can congregate which denegrades the neighborhood. I am a Libertarian and everyone that I talk to in Vancouver think Insite is insane. I would not call it "waging war" with the Province, since there is a lot of opposition to it in the Province. It is merely requesting the Supreme Court of Canada make a ruling on a ruling by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
ReplyDeleteHow about taking the funds used for insight and hire some nurses for a DETOX facility ?
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge there isn't any detox on demand treatment centers in BC. Anywhere that provides medical assistance for getting off drugs has a long wait time.
First of all, having heroin is a criminal offence. Why are these people not picked up, charged and sentenced to secure rehab facilities? A person who is messed up on drugs often cannot make the decision to clean themselves up on their own.
ReplyDeleteInsite is an enabling facility. The loony lefties that put this in place do not understand that their 'kindness' is actually condoning the drug addiction. Long before any 'disease' from dirty needles kill them, the drug does. People who love the addict will become as diseased as the addict because 'enabling' becomes it's own disease.
BTW...insite does nothing to prevent OD's. Even the smallest amount of heroin can cause an OD...once the organs and liver get sick enough not to do their jobs any longer. Anyone who supports insite, is actually helping to kill the addict faster.