Front page of the Vancouver Sun yesterday was an article about the plan for Vancouver to hand out free crack pipes. Never mind singing about a warm San Fransisco night. This program will attract crack addicts to Vancouver from across the country.
The article quotes one extremist who claims that more people are switching over to crack and there is a large demand for free crack pipes. No kidding. There's a large demand for pedophilia too. Do we start supporting that next? There's a large demand for murder as well. Do we start handing out free guns to satisfy that demand?
I cannot over emphasize how wrong this program is. Never mind shooting ourselves in the foot. This program shoots ourselves in the head. It makes policing not only counter productive but a waste of time.
Needle exchanges were supposed to be exchanges. You turn in a used dirty needle and you get a free clean needle. The intent was to help reduce the spread of Aids and reduce the number of dirty needles being thrown out in allies and school yards.
I met a Victoria resident who complained about the fact that in Victoria they stopped making it an exchange and just started handing out free needles. As a result there were twice as many used needles ending up on his lawn and all over the neighbourhood.
The other automatic problem is that where ever you have a needle exchange or hand out free mouth pieces or crack pipes, police allow drug dealers to sell drugs in public in that area. As a result, drug use and crime in that area skyrockets.
Every city has good and bad. The Vancouver hockey riot was a perfect example of that. A bunch of spoiled brats empowered by the mob destroying private property just because they can. It was an embarrassment for the world to see. The next day a huge number of people were outraged. Volunteers came out to help clean up. Activists posted photos from facebook to help identify rioters for the police.
What if a new facebook group of rioters was to start demanding the city hand out free lighters and free rags to help them set cars on fire? There's a demand for it. Just because there's a demand for it doesn't mean we are morally obligated to fulfill that demand. Idiots.
These Xanadu freaks from Vandu are part of the problem. Handing out free crack pipes is a corporate stunt organized crime would pull. "Here ya go. Your first three hits are free. After that you are addicted and become my personal criminal slave."
Handing out free crack pipes supports the drug dealers pushing Native women out of hotel windows in East Van for drug debts. It supports crack addicts being tortured in crack house basements in Prince George or those filmed being beaten to a pulp by wing nut Tony Terezaki at the Cobalt or the American Hotel. Vandu doesn't say much about supporting that but they do.
Take a look at what crack does to people. It's sad. These are human beings. Supporting them ingesting that poison is not compassionate. This program is as much of an embarrassment for Vancouver as was the hockey riot. The majority of good people out there need to vote against it and support the four pillars not just one.
Pandora's Pharmacy in Victoria started handing our free needles and there was a huge increase in dirty needles all over that neighbourhood. Why were they handing out free needles? Because they were also a methadone outlet. They were paid by the government to give people methadone. Only patients on the program are not encouraged to decrease their dosages. It's a pharmaceutical scam. Doctors who get kickbacks from supporting methadone are in a conflict of interest promoting that program or others like it.
One person wrote in to the Province and said "Giving our crackheads free pipes is a boneheaded move."
We will probably disagree about this, and while I would not advocate just handing out guns to everyone, there is ample statistical evidence to show that concealed carry by law abiding citizens leads to a drop in violent crime. This has been the case, without exception, in every state down south where it has been instituted. More guns = less crime. The same holds true in reverse, the UK and Australia both have experienced massive growth of violent crime since they both confiscated the majority of privately owned firearms, in both cases following a tragic large scale shooting. Canada had it's own such event which was also used as the excuse for further restrictions which affected only one class of people, law abiding citizens.
ReplyDeleteCriminals are already breaking the law, can we seriously suggest that they care about adding one or two more to the list they already violate? Yet by restricting or confiscating, those who believe themselves our masters can be seen to "do something" in response, and at the same time further consolidate their self-granted mandate on the use of force, declaring that only the police have the right to use force to protect you, not you yourself to do so. One of the basic building blocks of government dependency, all the more foolish because it doesn't actually work.
"The Police - When seconds count, we're only minutes away...."
And that's when they themselves aren't the problem. Ask that Chinese guy who got his face kicked in by two cops at his front door in the middle of the night how protected he feels. Probably good reason why they always recommend that people not resist. And why they don't want you to be equipped to do so effectively. Why is it that in Canada both the police and the criminals want the citizens to be disarmed? What do you think the outcome might have been if his wife had an effective means of coming to her husbands rescue when she see's him getting boot-fucked by two men in civilian clothes on his own doorstep? Hell no they don't want you to be able to protect yourself, they'd have less plausible reason for the job security they get claiming to do that for you, and you might even protect yourself against them. Can't have that now can we....
Canadians are no less responsible, or capable, of protecting themselves than anyone else. But they've been told they are. And like any other lie repeated often enough, in the absence of being challenged, over time it becomes accepted as truth.
Anyone interested in the evidence for the co-relation between civilian firearms ownership can check out:
More Guns, Less Crime, a book by John Lott that says violent crime rates go down when states pass "shall issue" concealed carry laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.
and
The writings and research of Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University, who offers a more localized, Canadian outlook on the issue.
Yeah I dunno. We’ve heard the argument before. “Civilians” carrying guns for self protection in a city is dangerous because when they pull out a gun to defend themselves on a crowded subway or street corner, some innocent bystander is going to get hit. The argument is stronger in rural areas where police response time is slower.
ReplyDeleteYet shooting at “corrupt” police who made a mistake and got the wrong door compounds the problem. Yes the theory behind the right to bear arms is to combat a corrupt government, yet it’s all very problematic. Handing out free crack pipes is wrong. Fixing that is within reach.
Methadone in Surrey.
ReplyDeleteThe "Clinic" was once an A&W. It doesn't look like a medical office, is on 135A street, to take advantage of the drug-addicted homeless there. It is creepy and very dirty inside, there is no counselling or any other rehabilitative services on site. In a dingy "office," a doctor speedily robo-signs methadone scripts in 10 seconds flat, never asks clients to get off it, and raises the amount they take every time one complains of a headache. Urine tests can never be done; because all of the clients are on crack & heroin, and the clinic would lose every paying client if they dared check too closely. The doctor performs no physical exams. before putting frail people on huge amounts of methadone, nor any psych. evaluation. No help of ANY sort is offered, but the pushing of an ocean of methadone.
I wrote in my first complaint about them to Health Canada.
"Thank you for contacting Health Canada. Your message has been received. We will get back to you as soon as possible."
What can one person do against the organized mass of clinics, the doctors there, the secretly-paying pharmacists...?
One bud of mine is pulling down $120 cash per month; just to get dailies delivered to his house Mon./Fri.. Carries for weekends. Then, they put you up to some staggering amount (140mls. or more!), you can stay well and still put away 40ml. a day to sell yourself, downtown it'll be snapped up @ the Corner in 1 second for $20/100ml.! That's at least another $40/week for you. $120 from the crooked pharmacy pushing dailies; and $160/month from your re-sales=$280 to $300/month, no prob.!
Methadone is a huge crooked money-maker for everyone, mostly all legal types!
I managed to pull 10mls. off my dose last month, that's a big whack from only 70 mls. But I did it, didn't get dope-sick and am now down to 60 mls., and dropping every month. My meth.-pushing doctor says, "Stop going so fast, you'll just relapse." But I put MYSELF in charge of meth., not him.
It's so terribly sad what is happening in our province.
"Clean crack pipes or plastic mouthpieces have been distributed to users through an AIDS Vancouver Island outreach worker in Victoria for two years now."
ReplyDeleteThat's from one of your links, so that has been going on for quite a while, eh...?
I had not heard anything about handing out free pipes, but as we see, its been happening for years.
I knew they have been handing out mouthpieces for a long time. Which I always thought was kind of weird. I’m not sure how many people are actually going to use a mouth piece for a crack pipe. Nanaimo stopped handing out crack kits but then started again. As for the crack pipes in Vancouver perhaps they mean when Vandu was doing it. Now it’s the city at taxpayers expense not a separate organization.
ReplyDeleteAs you pointed out, sometimes these projects go on for years and no one hears about them. I met a city worker who was handing out free crack pipe mouth pieces in east van years ago. She was incredibly rude and condescending to anyone who did not share her extreme political opinion. Yet she was being paid to promote the program.
Thanks for you’re insight on the Methadone program. As I’ve said before, my problem with the program isn’t the people on it. My problem with the program is the corrupt doctors and pharmacists who make money off the program and don’t reduce the dose to help addicts get off it so they have a guaranteed income.
ReplyDeleteThe reselling of methadone is another issue. I realize people have been reselling the methadone they get to buy heroin for years. Yet we are told that methadone doesn’t get you high. We’re told that methadone just takes the edge of heroin so when you do heroin it doesn’t have any effect. Is this claim not accurate? Why would people buy methadone on the street if it didn’t get you high?
Handing out free pipes will po. the folks I know who get the pyrex glass stock by the boxload, scribe & cut it, and sell at a tremendous profit.
ReplyDeleteOn another point, you're right that methadone fills addicts' needs, despite that it's not a super-high. Of course, it's boiled down and booted, to take the edge off coke or meth. Or, perhaps sold just to get a high like H, for those not on anything narcotic. It takes the edge off a wide variety of conditions.
True and I suppose handing out free crack would po the people selling crack at a tremendous profit. Yet handing out free crack at taxpayers expense would be equally absurd. Crack is really damaging and really addictive. It’s like handing out free rat poison or free mouthwash. It’s not in the addict’s best interest.
ReplyDeleteAs somebody who as lived in the wretched DTES border for 5+yrs the needle exchange has worked wonders. I used to go to UBC every morning and step over piles of bloody used needles dumped everywhere, now you hardly ever find one.
ReplyDeleteAll day/night I hear junkies asking 'Who's got a pipe?' and watch them share dirty mouth pieces and also occasionally here the home made pipes explode in their faces like Richard Pryor.
If you do nothing, you allow super diseases like MRSA to fester everywhere, which eventually jumps to us the clean and sober people. Do you want to be in St. Paul's recovering from knee surgery or something while a crackhead who shares a pipe with a dozen different people is walking the halls with open sores?
When junkies start coming in to get services they end up exposed to treatment options which worked in Germany, Netherlands, France, Denmark, and even the Czech Republic.
Dealers are too smart for the VPD. They supply disposable junkies to sell their drugs which can't be tied back to them. No junky is going to rat, that's a death sentence and the VPD isn't going to protect you.
If you want to see this in action go to where all the crackheads and cart pushing hobos return bottles on E. Hastings. Out front is a gauntlet of drug dealers, with very large security standing nearby (not hard to spot). Hobos come out of the bottle depot cash in hand right into a street dealing superstore. You give your money to one guy, and a junky holding the drugs (jail cover) hooks you up around the corner or on the spot. Lookouts all over the street, if somebody get's arrested they all flee in time and nobody ever talks, so no convictions except the junky caught with baggies of rock but no money.
The security and dealers are all from Ontario and Montreal. If they get arrested they just jump bail and fly home to avoid the warrant. Then the Toronto crew sends out somebody else
Should worry about those guy's not clean pipes
As for methadone, it's a useless remedy. It does get you high and you have to be a regular opiates user in order to take it or you would fall flat on your face stoned
ReplyDeleteIt is also 'more' addictive than Heroin. So you just move from heroin to Methadone. Problem is junky's lineup every morning to get the methadone, when it wears off a few hours later they go score H for $20 point.
The study where they handed out (gasp) free H to longtime addicts had incredible results. One guy who spent 25+ years living in total filth with the biggest convictions jacket in BC cleaned himself up and actually got a job since he no longer needed to obsess over getting his next fix, and only thinking short term.. as in a few hours short term planning, get fix by any means necessary, repeat.
Now that he's functional and has employment he can ween himself successfully off Heroin instead of being released from Detox straight onto welfare and the streets where convenience stores and corrupt hotels will cash your rent only cheques. Ever been in a DTES convenience store? Notice the customers are all dirtbags and everything on the shelves expired? Yeah they're not selling food and candy they're issuing loans, cashing cheques and setting up new drug customers for a commission.
The last poster who said methadone gets you high and that it wears off in a couple of hours and then they go get a point of H is wrong. The only thing he is right about is that if someone who is not an addict was to take methadone then they would get high.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am not a fan of Methadone even though I am currently on a methadone program. I would like to let you know a few truths about the drug though. When one first starts taking methadone they start you off with a low dose of say 40ml then move it up every week or two until eventually doing any other opiates is pointless. What methadone does is block the opioid receptors in your brain so that you will not get high off of Heroin or other forms of opiates. Now as for the dose wearing off in a couple of hours that is incorrect. One dose lasts for 24 hours.
One thing I wish I would have known before going on the program is how hard it is to get off of it. With heroin or other opiates the half life is about a week to two weeks but with methadone is is a month or longer. What that means is if you try and quit methadone cold turkey you can expect to feel the physical withdrawals up to 3 or 4 times longer than if you were heroin.
Knowing what I do now I would not recommend the methadone program unless you have been an addict for quite a number of years. I was as high as 190mls a day and after a year I am only down to 120mls a day and I hate having to take it daily.
I do not know how it is on the coast but where I am there is only a couple of doctors that are qualified to prescribe methadone and they work out of Interior Health. The doctors here try to get you to quit opiates without going on methadone and if they do end up prescribing methadone they are not getting any kickbacks and they do not dispense the drug themselves. They write out a script and you take it to one of the big pharmacies.
In closing don't let one bad doctor tar every other doctor that has to take a special course before they can prescribe the drug and are most likely volunteering their time the few days a month they see their methadone patients.
As for giving out free crack pipes well that does seem a bit dumb but seeing as a stem can be bought for 2 bucks from a head shop I don't see the big deal. The main reason for programs like this is to stop the spread of disease such as AIDS and Hepatitis C which is easily spread by sharing needles, crack pipes, and snorting straws. Another good reason for these programs is to make available various resources which can help an addict get cleaned up.
There is always two sides to every story.
I live directly in front of a DTES 'pharmacy' that only seems to dispense methadone. There is a huge lineup of ppl every morning getting it and then I see the same people later scoring points of H from a known dealer hanging at abbott/hastings. They are either selling the methadone or they're on it and still managing to get blitzed on H.. i dunno.
ReplyDeleteIbogaine HCL is legal in Canada for opioid addiction treatment. Too bad it costs so much, it is an effective treatment for some people (look up Patrick K Kroupa)
Well as I mentioned in my previous post when a person starts on the methadone program the dose is quit small for someone who is an opiate addict. It takes a couple months before the dose is high enough to block all the effects of opiates like heroin. Once an addict reaches his/her max dose then using heroin or other opiates is pointless.
ReplyDeleteI know there is another option but the name escapes me at the moment. The problem is that prescription plans or social assistance will only cover the cost of methadone and not any other options.
If they can prescribe methadone to help addicts get off heroin, then they should allow crack addicts to use BC Bud to get off a crack addiction.
ReplyDelete