Overdose RV hits the streets

[Queen K]

And in my haste to post, I did not express my sincere wishes that Jolly' nephew be okay from the glass. I'm sure any puncture wound from a foreign object can carry in bacteria and cause significant damage. I'm sorry Jolly that is happened to your nephew.

And while on the subject, I find broken glass everywhere. Even odd places where you'd never dream glass would show up and make a point of picking it up where possible. Even whole bottles, they get hauled out with me too, because why? Because surely someone will break them and cause havoc for people and animals a like. Many times glass has been hauled home in the car and recycled appropriately.

[Queen K]

, break out the..ummm, err.... tea? But seriously, anyone could have broken the glass bottle not just an alcoholic. I've been affected by alcoholics for as long as I remember. They do as much damage or more as any addict of herion or fentanyl or any other substance. The violence, the screaming, the stupidity. I only wish it was just broken glass in my foot I have to extract.

Wait, so you do want alcoholics thrown into facilities?

I'm really surprised you don't care about civil rights....or only care about them in certain circumstances for certain people. Kind of feels like you're living in the wrong country if you're so quick to say that certain people should be rounded up and forced into a facility....

I used to think that way Jolly, that I'm all for their civil rights, all for their free will, all for their rights period.

But then I started to see things differently. A minority has an entire society by the tail, catering to their every right to cost the system millions and millions when others who through no wrong doing are waiting for elective surgery, hospital beds, Dr. appointments and even rooms in a hospital, they're being cared for in hallways! Why? Because pushers and gangs are costing us human capital and those addicted are just not able to get the care they need in any timely fashion.

I really mean round up the gangs and pushers. Get addicts off the streets and stop them from being further victimized by dealers and pushers.

[dle]

I am sure that hurt the little guy a lot - but it probably didn't set the scene for the possibility of his having contracted a possible life-threatening disease like HIV or HepC and having to undergo tests for a year to make sure, and the 365 day worry the parents of a victim of a needle stick have to endure. All just so a junkie can get his fix and to heck with everyone else. So, sorry no comparison there I'm afraid but hope your nephew was okay.

HIV dies within like seconds....

...better do a tad more research. Not quite that simple - if it was that simple no one would have to be tested as soon as possible after the stick, and then again at 6 months, and then again 6 months after that. Once a year has passed and no sign of the antibody shows in the bloodwork then you are considered HIV free.

[JollyGreenBully]

But then I started to see things differently. A minority has an entire society by the tail, catering to their every right to cost the system millions and millions when others who through no wrong doing are waiting for elective surgery, hospital beds, Dr. appointments and even rooms in a hospital, they're being cared for in hallways! Why? Because pushers and gangs are costing us human capital and those addicted are just not able to get the care they need in any timely fashion.

Couldn't disagree more. There are tons of people who cost the system money. What about anxious people who constantly go see GPs because they think they're dying? What about old people who go see doctors constantly just for social visits? By your logic, all these people should have their rights taken away and be thrown into a facility. Or do you just have a hate going on for drug addicts?

[JollyGreenBully]

...better do a tad more research. Not quite that simple - if it was that simple no one would have to be tested as soon as possible after the stick, and then again at 6 months, and then again 6 months after that. Once a year has passed and no sign of the antibody shows in the bloodwork then you are considered HIV free.

There are no recorded cases of someone contracting HIV from a needle lying on the ground. It's actually a really difficult virus to contract. People are tested just to be absolutely sure because why not.

[Queen K]

But then I started to see things differently. A minority has an entire society by the tail, catering to their every right to cost the system millions and millions when others who through no wrong doing are waiting for elective surgery, hospital beds, Dr. appointments and even rooms in a hospital, they're being cared for in hallways! Why? Because pushers and gangs are costing us human capital and those addicted are just not able to get the care they need in any timely fashion.

Couldn't disagree more. There are tons of people who cost the system money. What about anxious people who constantly go see GPs because they think they're dying? What about old people who go see doctors constantly just for social visits? By your logic, all these people should have their rights taken away and be thrown into a facility. Or do you just have a hate going on for drug addicts?

It's not that you're right or wrong, it's that the thread is about the vast, unending, crisis every day OD situation. And if you haven't noticed there is an article almost daily about the od crisis situation and at my age, I never remember a time when that ever happened. I mean DAILY articles about ods and who is dying. Maybe I feel badly for my ex-boyfriend who's son got addicted and there was nothing they could do for him. Nothing that they didn't try anyways, treatments etc. Only to get ambulance bills from ON when their son nearly died over and over. The agony of a dad seeing his son had stolen and sold stuff from the house, that the neighbours tagged the son as a neighbourhood thief and posted notes on the community mailbox to say so. Or the grandparent who's grand daughter stole a truck at Christmas to disappear for drugs. Or or or it's just on and on.

Round up the pushers and drug gangs.

[What_the]

No, it's not.
Not at all.
That's just a guise to justify its exsistance.
It's about the money.

What the *bleep*. When has it never been about the money. From the moment with our opposable thumbs that we killed another for what they had, it's always been about the money or goods. You laugh at me for, because according to you, i think I'm smart (which we both are )when in fact you'll deride me and think I'm an idiot. Back at you man, the very fact that you said such rubbish speaks of arrrogance beyond contempt. I don't advocate in these threads to say I'm right, I do so in the hopes that framing this dilemma the way I do will open someone's eyes and prevent another child from living the horror I have, that many have. Because in my mind, the only solution to this problem is preventing the next generation from living it. And that will not be done by incarceration our letting people die in the street. I don't want to raise anyone else's kids, I want them not to live what drives people to self medicate like I did, like a million other Canadians have done. Like every single generation before my gen x did. It's a perpetual cycle of.. jeebus, it's as far back as the bible with the quote "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

You guys can sit there in you're smugness about how to pull up our socks, or we can work together to make a Damn difference in a child's life. Believe it or not, we are a community and when a child in our community suffers we all pay a price, statistics dictate odds of drug addiction

[Bpeep]

Wow. You go from zero to full out, don't ya.
When did I "laugh" at you or infer that you're an idiot?
I think most people are idiots, but I never included you in most.
Maybe I should?

[Jflem1983]

Does anyone have any better ideas . I've suggested medical care followed by a stint in a work camps to get some money and job skills be away from the bs etc . Anyone else got an idea . Heroin bus can't be the best and brightest . We can do better . I ask both sides of this bickering to try to come up with something better

[dle]

But then I started to see things differently. A minority has an entire society by the tail, catering to their every right to cost the system millions and millions when others who through no wrong doing are waiting for elective surgery, hospital beds, Dr. appointments and even rooms in a hospital, they're being cared for in hallways! Why? Because pushers and gangs are costing us human capital and those addicted are just not able to get the care they need in any timely fashion.

Couldn't disagree more. There are tons of people who cost the system money. What about anxious people who constantly go see GPs because they think they're dying? What about old people who go see doctors constantly just for social visits? By your logic, all these people should have their rights taken away and be thrown into a facility. Or do you just have a hate going on for drug addicts?

I believe that in the case of addicts, when they are in the throes of their addiction and have reached the level of having just one theme of crazed thought in any given day, and one thought only - that thought being "give me drugs now", do it, come down, repeat, they can't help themselves. They will continue on that path until they either die from it, or an intervention of some sort happens. For their own good, as well as the good of the others they prey on, they need to be in rehab. Rounding them up as a form of that intervention is at least just as feasible a plan towards keeping them alive as buying a 40 ft RV to drive around town staffed with medics allowing them to continue unfettered on their path to death. At least it seems so to me.

[Jonrox]

Does anyone have any better ideas . I've suggested medical care followed by a stint in a work camps to get some money and job skills be away from the bs etc . Anyone else got an idea . Heroin bus can't be the best and brightest . We can do better . I ask both sides of this bickering to try to come up with something better

I'm sure people don't want to hear it, but at some point you just have to accept that drug addiction is a fact of life. It can't be eliminated and won't be going away any time soon. All you can do is try to minimize it's effects and costs. That's what the injection sites and RVs are for... spending a little to save a lot.

I hate to say it but trying to find a "solution" is kind of pointless. There isn't one. So we have to make the best of a crappy situation and minimize the effects on the rest of us and the health care system.

[JollyGreenBully]

Rounding them up as a form of that intervention is at least just as feasible a plan towards keeping them alive as buying a 40 ft RV to drive around town staffed with medics allowing them to continue unfettered on their path to death. At least it seems so to me.

A treatment bus doesn't infringe on any rights

Rounding people up and forcing them to do something against their wills (putting them in facilities?) is not only illegal, it completely smashes so many rights and what Canada stands for that I find it unimaginable you and other are actually being serious.

You're against the crimes that you mistakenly think the majority of these "junkies" commit, yet you want to use illegal methods in some weird effort to contain them. It just makes no sense whatsoever. It would completely undermine the legal system and so many other systems in place in society.

[Jflem1983]

Rounding them up as a form of that intervention is at least just as feasible a plan towards keeping them alive as buying a 40 ft RV to drive around town staffed with medics allowing them to continue unfettered on their path to death. At least it seems so to me.

A treatment bus doesn't infringe on any rights

Rounding people up and forcing them to do something against their wills (putting them in facilities?) is not only illegal, it completely smashes so many rights and what Canada stands for that I find it unimaginable you and other are actually being serious.

You're against the crimes that you mistakenly think the majority of these "junkies" commit, yet you want to use illegal methods in some weird effort to contain them. It just makes no sense whatsoever. It would completely undermine the legal system and so many other systems in place in society.

So u r ok with all these young men throwing their lives away . It's trying to help them u take issue with . I think we have found a small part of the problem .

[dle]

Rounding them up as a form of that intervention is at least just as feasible a plan towards keeping them alive as buying a 40 ft RV to drive around town staffed with medics allowing them to continue unfettered on their path to death. At least it seems so to me.

A treatment bus doesn't infringe on any rights

Rounding people up and forcing them to do something against their wills (putting them in facilities?) is not only illegal, it completely smashes so many rights and what Canada stands for that I find it unimaginable you and other are actually being serious.

You're against the crimes that you mistakenly think the majority of these "junkies" commit, yet you want to use illegal methods in some weird effort to contain them. It just makes no sense whatsoever. It would completely undermine the legal system and so many other systems in place in society.

Tough. I'm being forced to pay for their drugs against MY will. I'm being forced to support them against MY will. In order to avoid aggressive, drugged up junkies who want me to give them more money and are threatening when I say no, I have to avoid certain areas in the middle of downtown against MY will. I don't mistakenly THINK these people are commit crimes to get their drugs. Being one of the people who has had my personal property stolen on several occasions from vehicle break-ins, trailer break-ins etc, I'm getting sick and tired of cleaning up and/or stepping over their messes - literally and figuratively. Drug paraphanalia left at the scene on two of these break-ins of my personal property was a pretty good clue these people were users. Every time I turn around I'm being asked, no re-phrase - TOLD, that my money is GOING TO BE used to "help" them in some form or another but I don't see them getting any HELP - I just see them being allowed, no enabled, to continue using. If I have to pay for it then my choice is I want to HELP them get off the drugs,to have a chance at LIVING again, not just enable them to use another day. But I don't get any CHOICE in the matter. My choices are taken away constantly in order to support their drug habits. Why the heck should they have more "rights" than any of the rest of us non-users? Fine - you don't want them to be "forced" to quit doing deadly drugs, you don't want us to take any steps to save their lives against their will? They obviously cannot make that decision themselves so they will CHOOSE to remain addicts. Let them make their own choices as you feel is their "right", and let them suffer the consequences of those choices, just as the rest of us do. Hard line? Damn straight. Every first responder who has to attend to these guys has to see things that stay with them forever. Over 130 OD calls in one day? Also, while all this is going on, who is taking care of the people having heart attacks, strokes, injured in car accidents etc while the ambulance attendants are on all those OD calls. Maybe even attending the same druggie more than once in a day. SOMETHING has to be done to STOP the drug use - not enable it anymore.

[Jflem1983]

Is the bus running today . Kinda wanna try it out . Keep safe u know . This is such a lovely service to have