InSite Safe Injections Site Closure

[Glacier]

Good discussion guys.

I view the addiction as a path that leads downhill with the grade getting progressively steeper with the path eventually leading you over a cliff. The further you progress down this path the harder it is to choose the turn back.

For some people, they don’t realize they are on this path until they fall over the cliff and hit rock bottom, pick themselves up, and seek help getting out of the valley of despair (if they survive the fall). Others see those in front them fall over the cliff causing enough fear about their destination to reverse their steps. Still others will change their course long before the situation gets dire because they realize they are better off without the dependency.

Every situation is different, but I would say that the vast majority of addicts have some element of choice left.

My brother is an alcoholic, but when his antics eventually got so out of control, he decided to quit drinking. He is still weak to temptation (and yes still an alcoholic), but he chooses to not feed his addiction. Okay, he has the odd lapse sometimes, but from my perspective the main reason he does is because of insecurities with who he is.

My mom was a smoker and an alcoholic, but had religious experience which took away her desire to ever smoke and get completely wrecked again.

A guy I grew up with became addicted to heroin and ODed once which point he chose to clean up his act. He knew he had to stay away from his old “friends”, which he did for a while. But eventually, he chose to pay them a visit and back to the drugs he went. A short time later he died of an OD.

One guy I knew was a cocaine addict in California. After a failed attempt to blow his brains out while high one night, he decided to come up to BC to leave this scene. He was good for about 10 to 15 years, but eventually he made a series of bad choices and got back into the drugs. One night, he blew his brains out for real.

Another guy I knew would get quite messed up on drugs and alcohol. For him it was escapism because he could not forgive himself for not preventing a tragic death many years previous. I suspect he would forgive himself, but then get drinking and the pain would come back. Maybe it was the other way around, but we will never know because he killed himself over the shame he felt.

Yet another guy I knew was the worst alcoholic I have ever known. He was truck driver who drank straight Vodka from the moment he woke until he went to bed leaving him in an inebriated state while driving truck for 12 hours a day. When he almost died due to an appendix that had burst two days earlier, he made the choice to lay off the booze. That didn’t last too long once the near death incident was far enough behind him, he was back to his old ways. At 35 he died due to alcohol induced organ failure.

While the choices might be exceedingly hard, I still think most addicts have a choice to not engage in their desired activity. Just my opinion based on personal observations, but am willing to change my mind if provided with solid evidence to the contrary.

[Homeownertoo]

Seems to me it is clear .... (rest of posting deleted for brevity)

Well put, Nab. I'll return to the topic but first just want to say how endlessly amused I am at SL's ongoing efforts to portray me as the ideologically blinkered one. I make no mystery of the philosophical eyrie from which I view the world. SL, in solidarity one supposes with the slug, boasts no such perch. I will leave it to the reader to decide which position is the more blinded.

Regarding SL's dissertation on the experiment he was involved with, I offer no critique. These forums are already littered with worthless opinions and my lack of specific knowledge regarding SL's undertaking provides no basis for more than the usual observations on experimental design: what role did placebo effect or experimental effect have on the results; were candidates picked for their close conformity with the parameters of the experiment, can such results be generalized beyond the confines of the particular lab; and so on. SL need not concern himself with answering such queries as they are not, in any event, germane to my point.

Which is that he makes the common logical fallacy of believing he can extrapolate from the particular to the general. He then ventures that the Garden of Eden is within our grasp if only politicians would fling open the floodgates of funding.

The responsible politician will do no such thing. But that shouldn't concern SL. We are blessed with a dearth of such politicians, and the ones we've had long ago removed the hinges, and the floodgates are now lost at the bottom of a sea of debt -- debt accumulated on a plethora of programs that all rested on the premise that we could "pay now or pay much more later."

As higher taxes are the last resort of the statist, this, no doubt, is SL's riposte to rabid right-wingers like myself who protest that we pay enough already. Still, I'd be much more receptive to an extension of SL's little experiment on drug dependency if he were to accompany it with suggestions of useless gov't programs that should have long ago been terminated. His position as a bureaucrat of some standing should offer some insight into such an endeavor.

I leave the ball in his court.

[Homeownertoo]

Though some people choose to quit when they find themselves on the road to self destruction, and some people are unable to do so. Is it really a choice when some people can easily make it by quitting and for some people it's nearly impossible due to lack of character or weak will? May be it's an easy choice for some people and nearly impossible for others. I've been addicted myself to nicotine, and for me it was a bit of an effort. And for others it's damn impossible to do for whatever reason. Or do you still count it as choice even if it requires tremendous effort and basically changing who you are at the moment?

Never having had this (or any other substance addiction) I can't speak from personal experience (though I was 'initiated' into smoking at the tender age of 10 despite lacking all the early childhood adverse events). However, I wonder if the difficulty quitting some face, as opposed to others, relates to the relative weight each places on what is, for most, an admittedly distant problem -- cancer or emphysema. The more one internalizes those horrendous, however distant, risks, the easier it probably is to quit. And if you are personally not inclined to fret over problems, especially health problems, the less incentive you would feel to quit, and put less effort into doing so.

Continuing that line of thought, if these simple factors on the relative difficulties of quitting are not considered, would that lead people to seek more complicated alternative explanations?

Just a thought from the sidelines.

[Homeownertoo]

... While the choices might be exceedingly hard, I still think most addicts have a choice to not engage in their desired activity. Just my opinion based on personal observations, but am willing to change my mind if provided with solid evidence to the contrary.

An interesting series of anecdotes, Glacier.

In his book Bull of the Woods, Gordon Gibson Sr., a longtime alcoholic, recounted how his doctor advised to quit drinking or die within five years. Gibson says if the doctor had given him a year to live, he wouldn't have bothered to quit, and if he'd given him 10 years, he'd have reasoned that was a long enough life that quitting wasn't worth it. But he couldn't get his mind around the five year limit -- too long not to ignore and too short to keep drinking. So he quit cold but kept a full bottle in his glove compartment, not in case he needed it but to remind him his adversary was always at hand and that he was strong enough to resist. His tools -- incentive and personal fortitude, that much-derided quality.

[deadscape]

You make it sound like you've never made a dumb decision.

You did recognize my "over the top" and plainly obvious use of sarcasm, right ?

Sorry, Steven. It's hard to pull the sarcasm from the rest some times. Cheers.

[steven lloyd]

... first just want to say how endlessly amused I am at SL's ongoing efforts to portray me as the ideologically blinkered one. I make no mystery of the philosophical eyrie from which I view the world. SL, in solidarity one supposes with the slug, boasts no such perch.

As long as something helps you to feed and maintain cognitive dissonance – amusement is probably preeminent as a psychological defensive mechanism for denial. After essentially just admitting to being able to view the world from only one narrowly defined perspective you then expect any person capable of critical thought to accept this is a superior perch. The incongruity inherent in this supposition should not be too hard for anyone to recognize. As far as the rest of your self-protective post goes, I’m not going to waste anymore time trying to elucidate my position when you obviously don’t care to even try and comprehend a viewpoint even vaguely dissimilar than your own. Wow! What a thinker you are - or I guess already knowing everything saves you from that effort (despite your spurious and condescending efforts to refute your pomposity).

I leave the ball in his court.

You couldn’t be further off the mark in any of your attempts to discredit that which you have still failed to grasp in the first place. We’ll just leave the ball over here homey. You’re just going to have to find some other way to overcompensate for your insecurities. Cheers.

[steven lloyd]

You did recognize my "over the top" and plainly obvious use of sarcasm, right ?

Sorry, Steven. It's hard to pull the sarcasm from the rest some times. Cheers.

No worries. Cheers yourself

[Homeownertoo]

... first just want to say how endlessly amused I am at SL's ongoing efforts to portray me as the ideologically blinkered one. I make no mystery of the philosophical eyrie from which I view the world. SL, in solidarity one supposes with the slug, boasts no such perch.

As long as something helps you to feed and maintain cognitive dissonance – amusement is probably preeminent as a psychological defensive mechanism for denial. After essentially just admitting to being able to view the world from only one narrowly defined perspective you then expect any person capable of critical thought to accept this is a superior perch. The incongruity inherent in this supposition should not be too hard for anyone to recognize. As far as the rest of your self-protective post goes, I’m not going to waste anymore time trying to elucidate my position when you obviously don’t care to even try and comprehend a viewpoint even vaguely dissimilar than your own. Wow! What a thinker you are - or I guess already knowing everything saves you from that effort (despite your spurious and condescending efforts to refute your pomposity).

I leave the ball in his court.

You couldn’t be further off the mark in any of your attempts to discredit that which you have still failed to grasp in the first place. We’ll just leave the ball over here homey. You’re just going to have to find some other way to overcompensate for your insecurities. Cheers.

Nice try, or perhaps I should say, nice non-try, since, as usual, you don't bother trying to understand, much less address, what a critic says, preferring to take refuge in ridicule and misrepresentation. Wow, what a thinker you are!

[steven lloyd]

Nice try, or perhaps I should say, nice non-try, since, as usual, you don't bother trying to understand, much less address, what a critic says, preferring to take refuge in ridicule and misrepresentation. Wow, what a thinker you are!

You do understand that all you've done is essentially repeat everything I just said right ?
I'm keeping the ball homey. Later, much later.

[ccrraazzyy]

Okay, this may or may not offend some people but....

It's a hard world, life is difficult, the older you get the harder the rules are to follow. I would like to meet one person that at one point and time said, "that's it I give up, I hate my job, I'm sick of paying the bills, the housework can do itself from now on, oh and the government can take it up the backside!"

Anyone? Could you imagine a world where we all decided to just stop? Hey even drug dealers have to find a product to sell to put food on the table.

So no, I do not agree with the working taxpayer to have to pay for the people that do give up. Yes it is a choice as it is a free world and above anything else, choice is one of our most precious rights! If they do drugs then they should have to work for their habitual choice like the rest of us.

What work you may ask? Pick up trash, collect cans, yes it's degrading but so is doping up. There are outreach programs out there that do not include giving you a clean needle. Those programs are the ones that should be funded.

Again, sorry this may offend some but it is my opinion.

[theartsyfartsy]

Numerous studies have shown that harm reduction works in the long term, where other strategies do not. People are not going to stop using drugs because they cannot do it 'safely'/in way that causes minimum harm, after all, people used drugs intravenously long before Insite opened (or the concept of safe injection site even existed)
You cannot force an individual into treatment who is not ready to deal with whatever issues led to their addiction - whether those issues are pain management, mental illness, or a traumatic event. Even if you could, there simply aren't the resources in British Columbia to help the people who need it, so Harm Reduction, and Insite is kind of like damage control...you think a safe injection site looks bad? what do you think it will look like if people are dying of Overdoses on the street, and HIV/AIDs and Hep C new transmission rates start climbing
it was actually an increase of both these scenarios in the 90s that led to the creation of a safe injection site....

[NAB]

...You cannot force an individual into treatment who is not ready to deal with whatever issues led to their addiction - whether those issues are pain management, mental illness, or a traumatic event. Even if you could, there simply aren't the resources in British Columbia to help the people who need it, ....

I cannot help but wonder if anyone at high levels has even considered analysing that approach in a major way, to see if there is any potential that it may be a wrong assumption.

Nab