Post Media Trash is reporting that Kennedy Stewart, the mayor of Vancouver, says he is screaming to Ottawa and Victoria for more funding to help promote drug overdose fatalities. He wants to spend the money on more lethal injection sites and helping addicts have greater access to drugs. This is the root of the problem and is the direct opposite of the Portugal model.
Portugal successfully addressed it's drug addiction problem by implementing mandatory treatment. Decriminalization is not the answer because right now drug users here are not charged for using drugs. Decriminalization here would simply makes it impossible to arrest the predatory drug dealers who are brutalizing the addicts as we speak.
Vancouver has the highest drug overdose problem per capital in Canada because of it's failed drug policy. Vancouver is a bad example. The failure in Vancouver's drug policy is the direct result of the city's abandonment of the Four Pillars program. They threw away the three crucial pillars of Treatment, Prevention and Enforcement and in so doing turned Harm Reduction into Harm Promotion. Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes is bad for you. Helping people stay addicted to cigarettes does not improve public health.
Kennedy Stewart might as well take that money and give it straight to the Hells Angels. In so doing he would save lives and save a lot of human misery. Helping people get off drugs improves public health. Helping them stay on drugs does not. Give your head a shake.
My take on this is, there is no appetite amongst the taxpayers to pay for rehab. there is also no appetite to allow people to die on the streets from o.d.s, hence the current system. Now it is understood many of those who over dose and die are in fact employed men who live on their own. However, the public isn't into accepting that fact either. They prefer to think its some "degenerate" who lives on the street
ReplyDeleteThe Portugese system is much better, in my opinion, because there is much more out reach to addicts. ''
There are those who will never get off of drugs and they need to be treated in one manner. People who can go to treatment, another system and the just homeless need to be housed. We have mixed up 3 distinct groups and that has simply made the mess worse. Of course, in an effort to stop the dying and the unwillingness of tax payers to foot the bill, this is what we get.
I've heard and read from people who complain that the government provides housing for the homeless and addicts. their line is, they ought not to be getting it free. Then they complain about the homeless living on the streets.
When I look at this current crisis I remember how people reacted to the AIDs crisis back in the 1980s. some things never change.
In my opinion, the mayor of Vancouver has too high an opinion of his own knowledge bank and intelligence. It is doubtful he is accepting advise.
I have no problem with housing the homeless. People need homes not drugs. The Portugal model worked because of treatment not promotion. The New York Model worked because of enforcement. Two of the Four Pillars Vancouver has rejected.
DeleteI'm keen on treatment and that can include a variety of things. As to enforcement, not that keen but again, it depends upon what type of enforcement. Investigating, arresting, and sending to trial drug dealers and their organizations a very good idea.
ReplyDeleteYes, enforcement means arresting the predatory drug dealers that brutalize the homeless. It is one of the four pillars. That's why Vancouver's drug policy has failed. People pick and choose what they want. You cant adapt the four pillars without enforcement. If you do, harm prevention become harm promotion. Our refusal to enforce the law has seen addiction steadily rise and overdose fatalities along with it. Our good intentions have made us culpable in skyrocketing deaths.
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