Yippeeee!

There's a lack of fields for sports for children but if my child smokes crack he'll have a play room to visit!

Gettin'your fix

Maybe Vancouver needs to have a bona fide red light district with controlled brothels.

And what if sexual addictions are whats your thing?

Wake up! The drugs are illegal. And what Vancouver is doing is simply becoming an enabler for a problem where noone wants to get tough.

Assuming Robt. Picton is found to be guilty as charged, he will spend perhaps the balance of his life behind bars. Warm and fed, he will suck off the public breast without real justice having been served up to atone for all of those women's deaths.

Somewhere along the way, someone has to say enough. It is tragic that folks get hooked on drugs. And while the distribution of those drugs cannot be stopped completely, is there no will to find those that sell these harmful narcotics and put them away forever,thus making the selling alot riskier and just not near as much fun?

When is it enough?

There is some consolation for me though. As long as Vancouver remains the enabler, I won't see the problems with it here.

dickensian england?

In those days the mentally challenged were warehoused in private attics or huge, grey sanitariums. This method got the problem of the street.
There is no doubt that these people with drug dependencies have self inflicted themselves into a mentally challenged state. To get them of the streets, maybe; it is time to try curing them instead of giving them day-pass hidey holes.
I know, I know. Rights and freedoms. But as the Law can enforce blood transfusions to protect the lives of children; surely we can enforce cures on these who entrap themselves into child like mental states.

Hyp, Hyp... Hooray?

Most of our country is addicted to one substance or another. Deprive the Starbuck's habitue of his daily fix, and you'll get an irritable, unfocussed, headachey, incompetent, unhappy, withdrawing addict craving a coffee hit.

Or consider the smoker. Smoking killed 45,000+ Canadians just in 1996 alone. Annual heroin, meth and cocaine deaths combined probably amount to hundreds, not ten of thousands. Alcohol accounts for thousands of deaths annually : fatal accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, etc.
The stats reveal our legal drugs to be the most deadly of all.

And many of the apparent ill-effects of illegal drugs are not due to the drugs themselves, but to the drugs' illegality:
ODs, dirty needles and disease, malnutrition, the need to commit crimes or prostitution...all those are due to the desperate condition our foolish drug laws place addicts in.

Why is there still this hypocricy that criminalizes and demonizes one set of addicts, while accepting or even respecting
another set of addicts who use the most deadliest drugs of all, tobacco and alcohol. It's nonsensical.

rockyvoids: If we were to apply your police state theory equitably, the "child-like" alch-ies and smokers who immaturely refuse to grow up and kick, should be the first to be locked up and "cured", as use of those 2 drugs is the greatest burden on taxpayers of all, as they cause the greatest amount of damage and disease.

FreeBC: Your mention of Picton is ironic.
Many of Picton's victims would still be alive today, if only we'd had better harm reduction and drug maintenance programs at the time. If those women had had easy access to quality detox, or, for the ones unable to kick, drug maintenance,
they wouldn't have been forced to sell themselves on the street, and Picton never would have had the easy opportunity to victimize them.

The problem isn't that a harm reduction approach is an "enabler" of drug use.
The problem to society is that our foolish drug laws "enable" far too much unnecessary death, disease, and property crime.

I can't believe, in 2007, there still exist so many drug-demonizing Neanderthal hypocrites like freeBC and rockyvoids.

Somehow they refuse to acknowledge that much of the perceived "ugliness" surrounding drug use that they find so repugnant, stems directly from the criminalizing of drugs. Their "give no quarter" attitude helps create the very situation they are so repelled by.

If we want to minimize social (and dollar)costs,drug use needs to be approached from a medical/social perspective, not a criminal
"justice" [SIC] one.

From what I've read,Bpither1's evidently the only rational commenter on this thread thus far, which is not too encouraging.

Well put Bobb999

I especially liked freebc's notion of justice, didn't you?

Sounds a lot like revenge to me - and directed at a man who hasn't been convicted of anything yet.

Your remarks about Picton's alleged victims are right on the money.

I can remember my dad's best friend, once a BC amateur boxing champion, talking about the East Hastings neighbourhood when he'd visit us in my childhood home on the prairies. That was decades ago and nothing much has changed since - except that there's still no real 'will' to change anything. These people don't matter to the folks with the power and the resources to change both the laws and the neighbourhood.

The condos and the real estate values do keep rising none the less. That's what really matters. From the Commonwealth Games to Expo 86 to the Olympics – those kinds of spectacles are so much more interesting and profitable.

Just get the addicts and the disadvantaged out of sight – they spoil the view.

'Just get the addicts and

'Just get the addicts and the disadvantaged out of sight – they spoil the view.' 'bout time you said something worthwhile g.

Why would I expect you to appreciate irony and satire El?

Perhaps you didn't notice the tag line under the picture at the top of this story.

I've often wondered if you actually read any of the journalism or the comments here before you provide your usual words of "wisdom".

I understand literary allusions and figures of speech are now covered in Grade XI - I guess you'll get to them eventually.

Remember to pay attention and take copious notes.

Like I said Bobb999 ...

first come the nutters (and derision). Just ignore the cynics who sneer because it is the easiest "analysis" in the world. I think that Ann Livingston and MP Libby Davies deserve recognition as some of the hardest working humanitarians in the city.

ED Deak sure has it right.

Insite is staffed by a team of 16 registered nurses, mean while, many B.C. towns both small and large are working under severe nursing shortages, struggling to provide services to their patents
You can work all your life, uphold the system, pay your taxes. But get hurt or sick, you can lay in a emergency room for 12-24 hrs suffer in pain, maybe die, mostly due to a supposedly nursing shortage. There’s no nursing shortage in B.C. obviously, its just that their all at injection,snorting, smokeing,etc drug sites. I have a suggestion for all our older citizens, can’t get help or proper medical attention at your local hospital, doctors office , answer , get your self some drugs , get down to one of these sites, you’ll get looked after, guaranteed. Additionally this is the best place to be if you require an ambulance fast, at one of these sites or skid road, the wait time for an ambulance, not in minutes, but seconds and not just one ambulance, many times there could two sometimes even three ambulances, and a fire truck racing there also, need an ambulance in, lets say, Hedly BC, under ideal conditions 20-30 minutes, just to get there. ED Deak sure has it right about this asinine system we live under! No, I don’t live in Hedly, but have friends there.

woody

Try dialing 911 in the province's capital, Victoria, and you'll get at least 2 ambulances and a fire department paramedic team too.

This doesn't just happen occasionally - it happens all the time, and it certainly has nothing to do with whether or not the target address is in the downtown eastside.

There is no doubt that the Campbell government is doing everything it can to ruin medical care and emergency services outside of the main population centres of the province. I'd say the fact that many of the same people (including failed finance minister Gary Collins) are involved in the executive levels of health care management in this province as have supervised the fire-sale of the province’s assets to corporate interests probably has a lot to do with it. ‘Woodn't’ you know.

Nevertheless, the connection to the safe injection site is not in any way apposite, sorry.

I also know what it's like to man an ambulance dispatched out of that area as well. Before the safe injection site was established it was not unusual to have a minimum of four calls in a shift for drug related cardiac arrest. Most of those calls necessitated a police escort in addition to paramedics. Since the Safe Injection site has been in operation, sudden death from overdose has dropped dramatically in the area.

Fine, as long as it is in Shaunnessey

1. I don't believe that the smoking site will help get cracking out of view. The crackheads in my neighbourhood are smoking it ten seconds after buying it from the bus shelter on Fraser at Broadway. If addicts can't wait the five minutes it takes to walk to the flophouse upstairs, they're certainly not going to take the bus (or cab, if it is Mardi Gras) to the supervised site. The drug is that bad. Or good, I guess.

2. Any guesses where such a site is going to wind up? Hmm... will it be False Creek? West Vancouver? Kits? Point Grey? Or... ding ding ding!!! We'll put it on the East Side, the designated bumland! And feel so smug that we are a progressive city.

I vote Shaunnessey

With a secondary site along Marine Drive in West Vancouver.

Hell of an idea Yammer

safe site

We should send all the tobacco addicts to this safe site also. Stop them from hanging out by doorways. The entrance to the old emergency at RJH looks like "skid row" and smells like a bar.

G West: If we conducted a

G West: If we conducted a poll, I wonder how many concerned citizens would like to go even beyond just getting the addicts out of eyesight.
Store owners in Brazil hire gunmen to eradicate street kids because they dirty up the neighborhoods and thieve to survive.
If a "Brazil style solution" were proposed for the DTES, in an opinion poll, I wouldn't be surprised if we'd actually get
some support for eradication from some of the the nutters! Pickton may actually be a secret hero of sorts to some drug-demonizers.

bpither1: the sneering cynics indulging in "the easiest 'analysis' in the world". No kidding. I see that some of of them can't let go of their pet canard that providing harm reduction services to addicts (e.g. the 16 nurses cited), is costing money and personnel that might be better spent on "worthier" folks.

Can't they get it through their heads that
harm reduction = taxpayers spending reduction, and a reduced need for expensive medical care?
For each case of HIV or hepatitis prevented
(and findings show reducing disease spread is a demonstrable benefit of safe injection sites), the taxpayer may save many tens of thousands of dollars, probably into 6 figures, in medical and pharma costs that otherwise would need to go to treating such chronic, expensive conditions.

Why should "normal" folk in the hinterlands or anywhere else be deemed worthier than anyone else?

Many of the knee-jerkers denigrate addicts for their "self-inflicted" illnesses.
Yet we have an epidemic of obesity among
"normal, good folk", which is a direct cause all kinds of burdensome-to-the-system
illnesses: diabetes, cardio vascular disease, and likely cancer, to name but a few.
So, there are a lot of other people out there (the obese, smokers, alcohol abusers) besides drug addicts suffering "self-inflicted" serious medical conditions. In what way should they be deemed worthier, and the street addict less worthy?

In fact, I suspect the costs to the system of treating illicit drug addicts is miniscule compared to the amount we spend treating preventable illnesses of "respectable, regular folks". How come the "concerned taxpayers" aren't up in arms about that huge waste of their money too? Well, perhaps it's partly 'cause a lot of them are fat indulgent pigs themselves, with poor lifestyles, who are likely to end up placing their own unnecessary medical burdens on society, just like the those drug addicts do! Hypocrisy, anyone?

I guess some people just like to find their scapegoat in the street addict...while defying rationality.

Supervised vs. safe

There is a huge distinction between a "supervised" injection and inhalation site, and a "safe" one. I completely support the former concept; people with drug addictions need to have full access to all harm reduction, treatment and recovery options. However, it infuriates me to hear people toss around the word "safe" to describe conditions for injecting or inhaling drugs. It is not safe to inject or inhale heroin or crack cocaine, regardless of how many trained medical staff are available or how sterile the equipment and setting are. I lost my partner because of his drug addiction. I am grateful that Insite was there as a resource for him and I believe that it did prolong his life, although it ultimately did not save him. Let's call this valuable resource what it is; a supervised drug use facility, not a safe one.

very crude

Bobb; So if one doesn't support safe drug smoking sites, that one is to be supportive of an accused murderer?
What about safe tobacco sites?
Even lepers had their cave.

No treatment so what do you expect?

Most nonaddicts have little sense of what addiction means for a person's existence. People with addictions can make rational choices while they engage in irrational behavior that endangers their life. They go to great and dangerous lengths to obtain drugs and in the process sometimes harm others. Punishment has little impact on their behavior in the long run and doesn't cure addiction, but addiciton does respond to treatment.

Treatment--that's what's lacking in this debate, but it's as elusive in Vancouver as affordable housing. In the meantime, harm reduction has been shown in credible scientific work to save lives and reduce criminal activity among addicts. Methadone, the most widely used and best known form of harm reduction, is now widely available (but was once controversial). But not all heroin addicts respond to methadone therapy, and cocaine and methamphetamine addicts have no such approach yet avaialable. VANDU is doing what it must to keep the harm reduction train moving forward.

harm reduction

harm reduction is more than "curing" an addict!
The system we have now, only manages to get a limited number of addict as far as a harm-reduction site, and then releases them exactly back to the environment that "they know"
In other words right back on the street where they will fall back sure as hell.
We are only doing any good if we follow up, and give these people an opportunity to start on a fresh slate, in a different neighbourhood.
If "we" spend mony on treatment perhaps "we" should also have the right to isolate them for a period of time,long enough that they can learn a new way of behaviour and perhaps begin to earn a living/pay taxes?

addiction centers

If the Campbell Government would take a few moments and stop their photo opts and get down to the brass tacks of running the province for all the people and not just the rich and corporate elite this problem might be addressed.

Trying to look greener than the Jolly Green Giant, Campbell and Harper are shoveling money of the back of trucks to clean up Stanley Park, but neither have tried to do anything about the problems that exists in the Vancouver East Side.

We can find billions, (yes billions that is what it will end up costing) to fund the 2010 Olympics for two short weeks. We can subsidize the oil companies so that they drill in this province, but not one level of government is willing to step up to the plate and invest in these peoples lives. Time to give them a helping hand and fund detox centers, councilors, low income housing, decent welfare rates so these people don't feel so down and out. These people will never climb out of that hole they are in until we ( tax payers) insists that the government get off their collective asses and help these people.

Crude?

IAMC I'm not sure which of my comments about Pickton you're referring to:

-It's fairly obvious that most of the women Pickton (allegedly) victimized were likely selling themselves to feed drug habits, and for no other reason. It's also fairly obvious that if they had had access to quality detox and, for those unable to kick, drug maintenance, they would not have had the need to be on the street selling themselves.
Most likely they'd still be alive today if we had saner drug policies.

-My other comment suggested that a (very tiny) minority of folks feel such disdain for street addicts that they probably do view them as pretty much expendable, just as Pickton did. I'm not suggesting you are such a person. But there are some very hate filled people in this world, and some of them direct their bile at drug addicts.

- Tobacco? Sure, tobacco addicts should be
offered harm reduction programs. They're drug addicts too, plain and simple. And their drug is the deadliest of all.
Smokers who can't quit should be encouraged to reduce the harm by avoiding smoke(which is so full of toxins) and switch to smokeless tobacco (much fewer toxins. Some risk of mouth cancer), nicotine gum, or patches. I transitioned successfully from 2 packs a day of cigs, to smokeless tobacco (e.g. Skoal), then to regular (non-nicotine) chewing gum, and finally I quit chewing gum. And my desire for nicotine has disappeared. Hey, it worked for me!
******************************
It's good to see some additional rational voices appearing on this thread (Tsolum, avandoc, Karen111)!

To bobb 999

I do not want to comment on your postings.
It's a no win situation.

So you admit it then Ron

You really haven't a leg to stand on.

Why did it have to take so long for you to realize it?

Bye. I like you a lot better speechless.

hahaha

frickin rights g west

So you admit it then Ron

i think you're onto something there...

Careful Bob....

The reason no help is coming for those addicted to western culture is that you have to be "dumbed down" to keep electing these morons. The more who actually take responsibility for their own health and well being the less votes they will get. You see a healthy mind and body will soon figure out the great lie being sold to society. Give us our meds and addictions, keep the news grim and fearful, and we'll keep doing more harm to ourselves and each other. That's why they want you to think every issue is so complicated! To complex for anyone to figure out! Look at the billions being spent on health care now! There is even a clock now! Where is all that money going? I want an audit. Somebody is lining their pockets big time. There is no other conclusion. So, Bob999, we have to be careful, as dissenters we will be targets. People like Ron, IAMC, swallow the propoganda hook, line and sinker. They are dangerous because there are afraid. People who are afraid arm themselves. So everything you say is true, especially for Ron. He needs intense detoxification or soon it will be too late. He is standing in front of the bathroom mirror as we speak pretending he is Harper kneeling down in front of George Bush for the first time. Don't forget to lock the door Ron, you know what happened last time your Mom found you in that Gestapo outfit.

Having rebuked Ron once again,

Having rebuked Ron once again, Garf slipped into his water walking sandals , with a sneer of conceit on his face, set off for a stroll out onto the Gulf of Georgia.

Detox the many (voluntarily!)

Thanks folks, for reminding me that behind the nom de plume IAMC, lurks the one, the only, Ron Erwin. I'd forgotten that's whose post I was answering.
clubofrome: Right. A lot of folks could use some detoxifying, not just the drug addicts!

Ex-pacifists Unite!

I wonder how that compares to the smug sneer of contempt for the voter shown by the likes of Bush/Harper/Campbell?

let's give everyone free

let's give everyone free drugs and booze, and a comfy fun place to get loaded in. i don't mind contributing a part of my paycheque to keep all the addicts happy.

Great Idea El

It would get you off the streets.

You get a paycheque? - Oh that's right, some people call it pogey but in the new sensitive 'liberal' world here in BC - the 'best place in the world' - it's now known as a 'paycheque'.

How do those addicts you so despise fit into that dreamy sunshiny image El?

A bit too discordant for your sensitive nature perhaps?

you're not lucid g. me

you're not lucid g. me thinks you're losing it.

you're not lucid g. me

you're not lucid g. me thinks you're losing it.

never collected pogey or

never collected pogey or welfare g. was raised to believe that you need to work to prosper. my grandmother's best piece of wisdom: 'god helps those who help themselves'. my grandfathers: 'if the dog hadn't stopped to shit he would have won the race'.

So you don't include yourself in this:

You're not part of 'everyone' Elliot?

I guess I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Sorry. I won't do it again.

Your contempt for people you don't happen to think ought to be breathing the same air you do is what's really contemptible. I think your grandmother left out a few lessons about what it takes to be a real mensch.

You can look it up.
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/how_to_be_a_men.html