Public supports closing safe injection site, Ottawa says

I suppose we should look compassionately at all those affected.  That list would include the people who own the property that the addicts steal to buy their drugs, the business that face losses due to addicts hanging out in the streets near their store fronts, the overburdoned police and court system and anyone who has the unfortunate displeasure of having to watch these addicts shooting up in plain sight on public sidewalks and alleyways. 

I lived in the DTES for 5 years a few years ago.  The safe injection site didn't change a single thing down there (even their own data theoretically estimates that one overdose a year is prevented by Insite - not a great outcome for the money spent).  If anything the situation seems worse now than ever.  I am in favour of any harm reduction teps that can be shown to make one of the affected groups better of without harming the others.  I just think that the poverty industry does not have any interest in healing these addicts as that puts them out of a job.  They thrive on "helping" addicts not curing them.  I have had many conversations with people that work in the poverty industry down there (Portland Housing Society, VANDU, DERA etc.) and all they talk about is how if they just had more government funding things in the DTES would be so much better.  I guess it would be....better for those that earn their living scqandering our tax money on band-aid solutions, that is.

If it was a success I would completely agree but with only 5% of IV drug addicts using it I think the money could be reallocated to detox facilities instead.

Drugs have been used as long as humans have existed.  We are not going to change that and we have no right to change that.  People should be allowed complete freedeom to do what they want with their own bodies, even if it is self-destructive.  The only role society has is to prevent the actions of individual citizens from negatively impacting the other members of the society.  To that end we should engage in harm reduction not prohibition. 

In the case of Vancouver you are not correct.  I have lived here all my life and the addicts have been in the same place the whole time.  They put the injection site where the addicts are. As for it's benefit, that is debateable as only 5% of the addicts use the facility.  They will not "spread all over the city" if we close it down as the area where it operates is a drug superstore with all the drugs a junkis could ever want and the pawn shops neseccary to fence the property that they steal from law abiding, tax paying citizens like me.

I am a harm reductionist but if we are only getting 5% of the IV drug users targetted by this initiative here in Vancouver I have to question if the funding couldn't be used with more impact somewhere else.  Meanwhile there is no scientific evidence that HIV and Hep-C infection rates have gone down at all.  So, ask yourself, what benefit are we actually producing?  Crime is not down, addiction is not down, discarded needles and  paraphanalia still clog the streets as they did before the safe injection site.  I think the people who are blinded by their ideology are those who refuse to ask these questions and simply assume that the facility is somhow beneficial without demanding proof.

I don't pay attention to Tony Clement.  The 5% figure is based on the number of Insite users divided by the population of IV dug users in the target area.  If you think spending more mojney will make drug users more likely to use Insite then you have never known an IV drug user.  I lived down there before and after Insite opened and I can say first hand that Insite changed nothing.  I want a solution to the problem and don't care who's ox get gored.  The DTES is a disgusting place, filed with disgusting self-destructive behavior and it must end.