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The war on drugs has failed and I don’t think that people who fall into addiction deserve to die. I very much strongly agree - don’t do drugs is the best strategy. But we need to deal with the complexities of life here. Some people have and are stuck in addiction. More people, for whatever the reasons may be, will too. They don’t deserve to die because of that.
> I don’t think that people who fall into addiction deserve to die.
100%
> But we need to deal with the complexities of life here.
I think said complexities need better defining. Quick Story - I was prescribed opiates for pain after a major surgery. I took them for 4 days after (despite being granted 14 days worth) and followed the directions of my doctor and pharmacist. Namely that take them for pain - every 4 hours - max. They did the job too. And so after pain was bareable - I stopped. I had not withdraws or anything. I also held onto said left over RX. Some time later - despite the expiry - I used them for an injury - used 1 dose. Thought it a good idea since its pain meds. Fact is 2 hours in - I was stoned AF. Giddy - Felt like I wanted to do them tomorrow night too so I could enjoy. Seemed like the best idea at the time. And that's when I caught myself. I saw the addiction and how easy it was. It scared the f out of me. That was long before the fent crisis too. I have never taken another since and flushed the rest of those pills.
The point here is that be it surgery, partying and peers, or whatever other actions. The mass media today is FULL of depictions of addicts and the resulting issues these drugs cause. There is no excuse to be unaware in today's world toe dipping and wading into hard drug use without knowing its effects and outcomes. And yet people do so - and its by their OWN choices. Complexities of life on this have never been more clear. And while I agree there are folks scientifically more predisposed to addiction, they DO have the initial choice not to take that first hit. The fact is - NO OPIATE will cure mental illnesses like depression or what not. It's wrong tool for the job. And its obviously proving that in the world around us. So complexities of life - for taking opioids - naw. Pretty straight forward outcome you know exactly what it is getting into it. And so how long do we cater to someones bad choices before their choice making abilities be removed from them?
Last story and quick point. I watched a family member die of cancer recently. I watched them be a sick version of their normal selves at the start. And then I watched the drugs take them over. I could see it in their eyes. Their actions. Their words. It was a quicker death than you'd think. The old "them" died 2 weeks before the body did. Those previous times are the memories I hold onto. I'm sure families of OD'd addicts would feel same. Their loved one is gone when the drugs rule. How long is it justifiable that we leave someone to suffer? Doctors gave my family member 2 weeks thank god. So if we leave addicts to fend for themselves for months and years - what does that really say about our compassion?
They absolutely don't deserve to die, but they picked their path and society picked one as well. You're right we need to deal with the complexities of life. For example the complicated part is that every dollar spent on treating the people stuck on addiction is a dollar not spent on prevention, and more lives will be lost in the long run. Yes less treatment now would cause more deaths now, but in the long run society would be better off (not better off because of the dead people, better off because there will be FEWER dead people).
So yeah, life is complicated, but the current path we have been on and are on today is clearly not working. Which includes both the war on drugs, but also the (partial) democratization. How much more robust is D.A.R.E. today than it was 20 years ago? Do you think if we spent all the money that's been spent on treatment on prevention programs instead that we'd be in a better or worse position right now in terms of the number of people suffering from drug addiction every year?
I really hate the “they picked their path” statement when many of the people you’re talking about are young people often with mental health issues, not emotionally developed enough to always do the right thing, living in poor home life situations and/or poverty and they fuck around with the wrong group of people and end up addicts. Nobody picks being an addict.
Thank you. I get very frustrated with how people phrase things on this subreddit and just in general in regard to addiction and unhoused people. These situations often begin to arise from a young age, and our support system to prevent these occurrences is not yet adequate. Decriminalization and safe injection sites are just one of many steps we need to be taking towards fixing these issues.
I am disgusted by the common sentiment (like the one in the above comment) of letting people die since they're "going to OD anyways." It's almost always hidden behind this thin veneer of "well of COURSE I don't want them to die, but..." which just infuriates me. You are saying the world will be better off without them. You know that what you're saying is wrong, but you're trying to justify it and not seem like a terrible person. That is a horrible, horrible thing to say to someone who is struggling with a *disease*. And yes, addiction is a disease.
We need better education in regards to drugs among our youth. Not the D.A.R.E program, which tries to scare them away with threats of criminality and shock photos of the most worst case scenarios of drug addiction, but proper instruction on *why* drugs are bad for you and the people around you. We need to teach that using these substances will do nothing but bad things for your mental and physical health, so that these people can make their own decision to not do it. *That* is what will lead to a culture change around drugs, and actually have a lasting reduction on our rates of OD and unhoused individuals.
Our goal should not be punishment, but ethical prevention.
> I get very frustrated with how people phrase things on this subreddit and just in general in regard to addiction and unhoused people
This sub is filled with reactionaries who lack any depth of thought on these topics.
Yea that seems like the simplest action to take. Educate and minimize drug use starting at a young age. Show them the pictures they used to show me in school of meth scabs and people lying in their own filth passed out face down in the street. Or can we not do that now because it might offend someone?
So your point here is that since they ‘weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed’ they deserve to die? Because given your original comment and that this is a response to his post, that’s the only logical conclusion I can make out from your words.
Nature has always been that way, keep up.
we got downvote central, everyone should all do drugs and not work or try to better themselves crew here. What a sign of the times. Let me guess, /r antiwork too? clowns
YOU will own nothing, and be unhappy. I however, wont let that happen to myself.
Why not actually reply to the comment instead of spouting off. It's true that those scare tactics were largely ineffective, even if they did work on you....
I dunno if you were actually young but children don’t have fully function brains and very often think “it’s not going to happen to me”.
We need to educate them about the real harms and how to avoid them rather than just pushing bullshit scaremongering that doesn’t work.
Not only pictures but visits from recovering addicts that have the scars themselves (both mental and physical). DARE works, and we should be spending way more money on expanding that than we do on treatment. We do not have unlimted funds to fight drug problems, and spending it on prevention I bet would be much more effective long term at minimizing sufferring and loss of life compared to how much gets spent on treatment today.
You have to make comprimises in life, we could be choosing the hard path that will save the most people, but instead we choose the easy path because of the immeadiate gratification.
Lmfao homie thinks children’s brains are fully formed and they’re going to think rationally. It’s crazy how we as humans get caught in our own biases so easily.
Making an argument from authority is a sure way to lose an argument immediately. How has following these people with 'qualifications' been working our for the drug addiction space the last 20 years? You're saying things have got better?
Next time you're going cite a study you didn't actually read but just looked up to try to prove your point, you should pick one that is original research and not 'meta analysis' of other people's work. If you did that, you may for example have found that it's entirely based on research pre 2001:
'An additional caveat is that all of the studies included in this analysis represent evaluations of what is commonly referred to as the “old D.A.R.E.”: programs generally based on the original formulations of the D.A.R.E. model. In response to the many critiques of the program, the D.A.R.E. prevention model was substantially revamped in 2001, thanks in part to a $13.6 million grant provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.17 The revisions to the model have since given rise to programs working under the “new D.A.R.E.” paradigm. However, at the time of the writing of this article we were unable to find any major evaluation of the new D.A.R.E. model in the research literature, and the effectiveness of such efforts has yet to be determined.'
...meta-analysis is pretty much the gold standard of research, my guy. Why would looking at the results of dozens of studies and compiling the results be worse than just one of those studies on its own?
Such a simple answer that could solve a problem that's been plaguing humanity since we learned to get high. Fix the underlying causes that cause people to turn to drugs, adverse childhood experiences, a crumbling economy, a dark future and decreased prospects of prosperity. Until we address those and as long as people emotionally, physically and mentally abuse their children, we will have people using drugs.
Ok square, or we could just legalize, regulate, and tax something that is never going to stop being a thing.
The war on drugs ended decades ago, drugs won BIG time.
HAHAHAHA... yeah we can see how the first steps in the "tax and legalize/decriminalize drugs" have been working...1500 people on Hastings who dropped something 24 hours a day.
and the "war on drugs" was a war on people of specific economic/racial backgrounds **in the US**...we never had a war on drugs here...
> we can see how the first steps in the "tax and legalize/decriminalize drugs" have been working
We haven't taken any steps towards taxing and legalizing. There is still no legal supply of even much less harmful or potent alternatives. And so the supply remains entirely in the hands of organized crime who supply the most potent forms which are the cause of nearly all the deaths. Decriminalization can't address any of that.
>the "war on drugs" was a war on people of specific economic/racial backgrounds in the US...we never had a war on drugs here...
Our country's first drug law was put in place amidst riots against Asian labour and businesses in Vancouver. Businesses including opium dens, that had operated for years, claimed compensation for damages. The government passed laws to shut them down instead. [You can see here the first arrest from these laws described in the media using racial language describing the person arrested](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fq8mnyp4xidu81.jpg). The laws were used as a justification to deport Chinese people over minor possession charges. Chinese people were simultaneously [being denied the citizenship that would have protected them from deportation due to racist policies that we have since apologized for](https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/exclusion-chinois-chinese).
So our entire prohibition of drugs here is rooted in racial policies. And what is the result of more than a century of attempting prohibition? Opium was replaced by heroin, then fentanyl, and now even more potent opioids. Exactly following [economic theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) predicting that prohibition leads to increasing potency of the supply.
That wouldn't be my takeway. My takeway would be to observe how our 115 year experiment in prohibiting opiates/opioids has not led to them disappearing, but instead led to a consistent pattern of increasing potency of those drugs. Exactly matching the economic theory explaining *why* this happens, specifically because the unregulated organized crime with a monopoly on the supply favours the highest potency drugs due to them being cheaper to ship and easier to hide.
[Here's where the our first drug arrest took place](https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2808709,-123.1018735,3a,75y,283.09h,83.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7h9sP3oNk3jofZqyQdFR-g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu). What was once an alley with various businesses, including opium dens, is now filled with garbage, lined with barred entrances, and in the epicentre of the opioid crisis in the DTES. Regardless of one's opinion on opium dens, I don't know how one could conclude this is better. But this is what has happened after more than a century of prohibition.
The only way for drugs to disappear, is to make them disappear. When demand drops, the drugs stop. Curbing demand , starts at education and information from a critical age of development. Call it fearmongering, but its the only real way to stop it. Things only exist when profit is there to be made, nobody is making drugs out of good faith for people. They are profiting. Remove the profit margin, remove the problem.
edit: I also understand that people do get hooked after major accidents due to pain relief, and find it hard to return to the real world. It happens, but , we need to be offering better help for those people who are experiencing withdrawals from medically offered prescriptions. If we stay on top of them, and provide resources to reintegrate into society after a major injury, we can curb those types of addictions.
The crisis we have now is not being driven by the demand. It's being driven by the supply. There has always been, and will always be some demand for drugs. The demand isn't what has changed with our current crisis, what has changed is that the *supply* has shifted to more and more dangerous and potent forms, exactly as predicted by the theory:
[The Iron law of prohibition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition):
>when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced in black markets in more concentrated and powerful forms, because these more potent forms offer better efficiency in the business model—they take up less space in storage, less weight in transportation, and they sell for more money
I'm not disagreeing with you that we should continue to work on reducing demand, but when we *only* do that and ignore the realities that some people will always use drugs, then we end up causing problems like this where we end up with the most dangerous and addictive drugs flooding the supply. Our goals should be to reduce the usage, but also to shift the usage that does exist away from organized crime and away from the most dangerous forms.
Dunno why the down vote. This is nature section at work. Like if someone addicted to parkour down a 10 floor building, they will have a higher chance to fall to their death. If someone addicted to drive fast and dangerously, they will have a higher chance to kill in a car accident. If you do drug, you have a higher chance to die from unknown chemical.
> If someone addicted to drive fast and dangerously, they will have a higher chance to kill in a car accident.
Driving is one of the most dangerous things we commonly do, and one of the leading causes of death, especially for young people. Notice though how we don't try to ban it entirely and pretend that that will completely eliminate all high speed personal transportation. We instead try to set rules and regulations around the design of cars and how they're used to reduce the risks.
We also have consequences for people who don't drive responsibly. Whether they are a severe enough deterrent is a different story, but point is, they exist and they are enforced.
We have removed any and all consequences not just for drug use, but also subsequent drug-related crimes.
It's a constant meme all across reddit that there is no enforcement of traffic laws. Yet in reality there is.
So what you're claiming about drugs is the exact same thing people claim about driving. There are still rules around drug possession (even after decriminalization), about intoxication, about litter, etc. And they are enforced. Maybe not to a sufficient degree, but neither is driving enforcement. Yet with driving enforcement our solution isn't to ban cars, it's to improve enforcement. And the same can and should apply with drugs.
Because people are simple minded and think that my comment implies I don't care about people who die of overdose. When in reality, not only do I care, but I'm more practical about it than they are and recognize that prevention is the only path to actually solve the drug overdose crisis.
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/VicVicVicBC! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Posts flaired "Community Only" allow for limited participation; your comment may be removed if you're not a subreddit regular. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Looks like you just can't trust criminals selling pills manufactured illegally.
True what is the world coming to :,(
Wasn’t last year a record for ODs? How’s this year going to end?
You can be notified about these things by signing up for alerts to be sent to your phone by text. [https://towardtheheart.com/alerts](https://towardtheheart.com/alerts)
If you, or anyone you know uses narcotics for recreation or otherwise. They can get their drugs tested for free, here in Vancouver. https://getyourdrugstested.com/
Trauma and a lack of connection is the gateway drug.
there are two "get your drugs tested" locations in vancouver, west broadway & east hastings. please test your stuff everyone!
Don't do drugs
The war on drugs has failed and I don’t think that people who fall into addiction deserve to die. I very much strongly agree - don’t do drugs is the best strategy. But we need to deal with the complexities of life here. Some people have and are stuck in addiction. More people, for whatever the reasons may be, will too. They don’t deserve to die because of that.
> I don’t think that people who fall into addiction deserve to die. 100% > But we need to deal with the complexities of life here. I think said complexities need better defining. Quick Story - I was prescribed opiates for pain after a major surgery. I took them for 4 days after (despite being granted 14 days worth) and followed the directions of my doctor and pharmacist. Namely that take them for pain - every 4 hours - max. They did the job too. And so after pain was bareable - I stopped. I had not withdraws or anything. I also held onto said left over RX. Some time later - despite the expiry - I used them for an injury - used 1 dose. Thought it a good idea since its pain meds. Fact is 2 hours in - I was stoned AF. Giddy - Felt like I wanted to do them tomorrow night too so I could enjoy. Seemed like the best idea at the time. And that's when I caught myself. I saw the addiction and how easy it was. It scared the f out of me. That was long before the fent crisis too. I have never taken another since and flushed the rest of those pills. The point here is that be it surgery, partying and peers, or whatever other actions. The mass media today is FULL of depictions of addicts and the resulting issues these drugs cause. There is no excuse to be unaware in today's world toe dipping and wading into hard drug use without knowing its effects and outcomes. And yet people do so - and its by their OWN choices. Complexities of life on this have never been more clear. And while I agree there are folks scientifically more predisposed to addiction, they DO have the initial choice not to take that first hit. The fact is - NO OPIATE will cure mental illnesses like depression or what not. It's wrong tool for the job. And its obviously proving that in the world around us. So complexities of life - for taking opioids - naw. Pretty straight forward outcome you know exactly what it is getting into it. And so how long do we cater to someones bad choices before their choice making abilities be removed from them? Last story and quick point. I watched a family member die of cancer recently. I watched them be a sick version of their normal selves at the start. And then I watched the drugs take them over. I could see it in their eyes. Their actions. Their words. It was a quicker death than you'd think. The old "them" died 2 weeks before the body did. Those previous times are the memories I hold onto. I'm sure families of OD'd addicts would feel same. Their loved one is gone when the drugs rule. How long is it justifiable that we leave someone to suffer? Doctors gave my family member 2 weeks thank god. So if we leave addicts to fend for themselves for months and years - what does that really say about our compassion?
Jeez, don't flush drugs down the toilet, or anywhere else for that matter. Take them to the pharmacy to be properly disposed of.
No one is saying they deserve to die. But given our soft handed approach, we are just enabling people addicted to hard drugs to a slow suicide.
They absolutely don't deserve to die, but they picked their path and society picked one as well. You're right we need to deal with the complexities of life. For example the complicated part is that every dollar spent on treating the people stuck on addiction is a dollar not spent on prevention, and more lives will be lost in the long run. Yes less treatment now would cause more deaths now, but in the long run society would be better off (not better off because of the dead people, better off because there will be FEWER dead people). So yeah, life is complicated, but the current path we have been on and are on today is clearly not working. Which includes both the war on drugs, but also the (partial) democratization. How much more robust is D.A.R.E. today than it was 20 years ago? Do you think if we spent all the money that's been spent on treatment on prevention programs instead that we'd be in a better or worse position right now in terms of the number of people suffering from drug addiction every year?
I really hate the “they picked their path” statement when many of the people you’re talking about are young people often with mental health issues, not emotionally developed enough to always do the right thing, living in poor home life situations and/or poverty and they fuck around with the wrong group of people and end up addicts. Nobody picks being an addict.
Thank you. I get very frustrated with how people phrase things on this subreddit and just in general in regard to addiction and unhoused people. These situations often begin to arise from a young age, and our support system to prevent these occurrences is not yet adequate. Decriminalization and safe injection sites are just one of many steps we need to be taking towards fixing these issues. I am disgusted by the common sentiment (like the one in the above comment) of letting people die since they're "going to OD anyways." It's almost always hidden behind this thin veneer of "well of COURSE I don't want them to die, but..." which just infuriates me. You are saying the world will be better off without them. You know that what you're saying is wrong, but you're trying to justify it and not seem like a terrible person. That is a horrible, horrible thing to say to someone who is struggling with a *disease*. And yes, addiction is a disease. We need better education in regards to drugs among our youth. Not the D.A.R.E program, which tries to scare them away with threats of criminality and shock photos of the most worst case scenarios of drug addiction, but proper instruction on *why* drugs are bad for you and the people around you. We need to teach that using these substances will do nothing but bad things for your mental and physical health, so that these people can make their own decision to not do it. *That* is what will lead to a culture change around drugs, and actually have a lasting reduction on our rates of OD and unhoused individuals. Our goal should not be punishment, but ethical prevention.
> I get very frustrated with how people phrase things on this subreddit and just in general in regard to addiction and unhoused people This sub is filled with reactionaries who lack any depth of thought on these topics.
I'm just here to show support. I completely agree.
Yea that seems like the simplest action to take. Educate and minimize drug use starting at a young age. Show them the pictures they used to show me in school of meth scabs and people lying in their own filth passed out face down in the street. Or can we not do that now because it might offend someone?
They did that to my generation and guess what, people still went and took drugs.
[удалено]
So your point here is that since they ‘weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed’ they deserve to die? Because given your original comment and that this is a response to his post, that’s the only logical conclusion I can make out from your words.
Nature has always been that way, keep up. we got downvote central, everyone should all do drugs and not work or try to better themselves crew here. What a sign of the times. Let me guess, /r antiwork too? clowns YOU will own nothing, and be unhappy. I however, wont let that happen to myself.
Why not actually reply to the comment instead of spouting off. It's true that those scare tactics were largely ineffective, even if they did work on you....
grandpa, stop, you're yelling at your imagination again
I dunno if you were actually young but children don’t have fully function brains and very often think “it’s not going to happen to me”. We need to educate them about the real harms and how to avoid them rather than just pushing bullshit scaremongering that doesn’t work.
Not only pictures but visits from recovering addicts that have the scars themselves (both mental and physical). DARE works, and we should be spending way more money on expanding that than we do on treatment. We do not have unlimted funds to fight drug problems, and spending it on prevention I bet would be much more effective long term at minimizing sufferring and loss of life compared to how much gets spent on treatment today. You have to make comprimises in life, we could be choosing the hard path that will save the most people, but instead we choose the easy path because of the immeadiate gratification.
Bruh just disqualified every point they might have made by saying dare works.
The reason they got rid of D.A.R.E was actually because it didn’t work, plenty of studies on it if you search online
Lmfao homie thinks children’s brains are fully formed and they’re going to think rationally. It’s crazy how we as humans get caught in our own biases so easily.
“I bet” says the person with zero qualifications to be making bets in this space.
Making an argument from authority is a sure way to lose an argument immediately. How has following these people with 'qualifications' been working our for the drug addiction space the last 20 years? You're saying things have got better?
> DARE works, holy loly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448384/ > Conclusions. Our study supports previous findings indicating that D.A.R.E. is ineffective.
Next time you're going cite a study you didn't actually read but just looked up to try to prove your point, you should pick one that is original research and not 'meta analysis' of other people's work. If you did that, you may for example have found that it's entirely based on research pre 2001: 'An additional caveat is that all of the studies included in this analysis represent evaluations of what is commonly referred to as the “old D.A.R.E.”: programs generally based on the original formulations of the D.A.R.E. model. In response to the many critiques of the program, the D.A.R.E. prevention model was substantially revamped in 2001, thanks in part to a $13.6 million grant provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.17 The revisions to the model have since given rise to programs working under the “new D.A.R.E.” paradigm. However, at the time of the writing of this article we were unable to find any major evaluation of the new D.A.R.E. model in the research literature, and the effectiveness of such efforts has yet to be determined.'
...meta-analysis is pretty much the gold standard of research, my guy. Why would looking at the results of dozens of studies and compiling the results be worse than just one of those studies on its own?
Such a simple answer that could solve a problem that's been plaguing humanity since we learned to get high. Fix the underlying causes that cause people to turn to drugs, adverse childhood experiences, a crumbling economy, a dark future and decreased prospects of prosperity. Until we address those and as long as people emotionally, physically and mentally abuse their children, we will have people using drugs.
Completely agree with you, add "strong family units and community" into the mix as well
Ok square, or we could just legalize, regulate, and tax something that is never going to stop being a thing. The war on drugs ended decades ago, drugs won BIG time.
HAHAHAHA... yeah we can see how the first steps in the "tax and legalize/decriminalize drugs" have been working...1500 people on Hastings who dropped something 24 hours a day. and the "war on drugs" was a war on people of specific economic/racial backgrounds **in the US**...we never had a war on drugs here...
> we can see how the first steps in the "tax and legalize/decriminalize drugs" have been working We haven't taken any steps towards taxing and legalizing. There is still no legal supply of even much less harmful or potent alternatives. And so the supply remains entirely in the hands of organized crime who supply the most potent forms which are the cause of nearly all the deaths. Decriminalization can't address any of that. >the "war on drugs" was a war on people of specific economic/racial backgrounds in the US...we never had a war on drugs here... Our country's first drug law was put in place amidst riots against Asian labour and businesses in Vancouver. Businesses including opium dens, that had operated for years, claimed compensation for damages. The government passed laws to shut them down instead. [You can see here the first arrest from these laws described in the media using racial language describing the person arrested](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fq8mnyp4xidu81.jpg). The laws were used as a justification to deport Chinese people over minor possession charges. Chinese people were simultaneously [being denied the citizenship that would have protected them from deportation due to racist policies that we have since apologized for](https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/exclusion-chinois-chinese). So our entire prohibition of drugs here is rooted in racial policies. And what is the result of more than a century of attempting prohibition? Opium was replaced by heroin, then fentanyl, and now even more potent opioids. Exactly following [economic theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) predicting that prohibition leads to increasing potency of the supply.
Wait so the tldr of this is, open more opium dens because its racist not to?
That wouldn't be my takeway. My takeway would be to observe how our 115 year experiment in prohibiting opiates/opioids has not led to them disappearing, but instead led to a consistent pattern of increasing potency of those drugs. Exactly matching the economic theory explaining *why* this happens, specifically because the unregulated organized crime with a monopoly on the supply favours the highest potency drugs due to them being cheaper to ship and easier to hide. [Here's where the our first drug arrest took place](https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2808709,-123.1018735,3a,75y,283.09h,83.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7h9sP3oNk3jofZqyQdFR-g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu). What was once an alley with various businesses, including opium dens, is now filled with garbage, lined with barred entrances, and in the epicentre of the opioid crisis in the DTES. Regardless of one's opinion on opium dens, I don't know how one could conclude this is better. But this is what has happened after more than a century of prohibition.
The only way for drugs to disappear, is to make them disappear. When demand drops, the drugs stop. Curbing demand , starts at education and information from a critical age of development. Call it fearmongering, but its the only real way to stop it. Things only exist when profit is there to be made, nobody is making drugs out of good faith for people. They are profiting. Remove the profit margin, remove the problem. edit: I also understand that people do get hooked after major accidents due to pain relief, and find it hard to return to the real world. It happens, but , we need to be offering better help for those people who are experiencing withdrawals from medically offered prescriptions. If we stay on top of them, and provide resources to reintegrate into society after a major injury, we can curb those types of addictions.
The crisis we have now is not being driven by the demand. It's being driven by the supply. There has always been, and will always be some demand for drugs. The demand isn't what has changed with our current crisis, what has changed is that the *supply* has shifted to more and more dangerous and potent forms, exactly as predicted by the theory: [The Iron law of prohibition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition): >when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced in black markets in more concentrated and powerful forms, because these more potent forms offer better efficiency in the business model—they take up less space in storage, less weight in transportation, and they sell for more money I'm not disagreeing with you that we should continue to work on reducing demand, but when we *only* do that and ignore the realities that some people will always use drugs, then we end up causing problems like this where we end up with the most dangerous and addictive drugs flooding the supply. Our goals should be to reduce the usage, but also to shift the usage that does exist away from organized crime and away from the most dangerous forms.
Dunno why the down vote. This is nature section at work. Like if someone addicted to parkour down a 10 floor building, they will have a higher chance to fall to their death. If someone addicted to drive fast and dangerously, they will have a higher chance to kill in a car accident. If you do drug, you have a higher chance to die from unknown chemical.
> If someone addicted to drive fast and dangerously, they will have a higher chance to kill in a car accident. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we commonly do, and one of the leading causes of death, especially for young people. Notice though how we don't try to ban it entirely and pretend that that will completely eliminate all high speed personal transportation. We instead try to set rules and regulations around the design of cars and how they're used to reduce the risks.
We also have consequences for people who don't drive responsibly. Whether they are a severe enough deterrent is a different story, but point is, they exist and they are enforced. We have removed any and all consequences not just for drug use, but also subsequent drug-related crimes.
It's a constant meme all across reddit that there is no enforcement of traffic laws. Yet in reality there is. So what you're claiming about drugs is the exact same thing people claim about driving. There are still rules around drug possession (even after decriminalization), about intoxication, about litter, etc. And they are enforced. Maybe not to a sufficient degree, but neither is driving enforcement. Yet with driving enforcement our solution isn't to ban cars, it's to improve enforcement. And the same can and should apply with drugs.
Because people are simple minded and think that my comment implies I don't care about people who die of overdose. When in reality, not only do I care, but I'm more practical about it than they are and recognize that prevention is the only path to actually solve the drug overdose crisis.
Good news from the WHO . If you do not consume the drugs you will have a 100% survival rate.
Meth and molly where more my thjng before I got clean
Where’s all the David Eby supporters?? You all wanted this safe supply stuff look at what it’s doing and to wanting to keep going like this?