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I was just reading about a possible pilot program coming to my area where intravenous drug users would have a safe place to go to inject their heroine and there will be staff on hand to save them if they should overdose.
What do you think about this? Is it a good or bad idea?
The Pros are stated that they would be giving a safe place to shoot up and be watched in case they should overdose. They would also offer help to the addicts to get off the drugs. The benefits to the community is that the addicts would be in one area which means that we won't be finding discarded needles in our neighborhoods when we take the dog for a walk or kids to the park. They also say that crime will be reduced because people will not be so desperate. The spread of disease due to the sharing of needles is also said to be reduced by having a safe site.
The Cons in my mind is that we are coddling the addicts and removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high. Will they ever be inspired to get off the junk if the stigma from being a junkie is removed?
There is also the concern of how you view a addict. Are they a victim of a "disease" or did they do it to themselves so there is no one to blame but themselves?
Addicts are a huge drain on our resources and a danger to everyone either through crime, disease or even the first responders that are saving someone for the 4th time and they are busy they can't get to an accident scene quickly enough to save those victims.
Should we just let the addicts wither away of even die when they overdose?
These are all hard questions but do you think that safe injection sites for drug users is a good idea?
I was just reading about a possible pilot program coming to my area where intravenous drug users would have a safe place to go to inject their heroine and there will be staff on hand to save them if they should overdose.
What do you think about this? Is it a good or bad idea?
The Pros are stated that they would be giving a safe place to shoot up and be watched in case they should overdose. They would also offer help to the addicts to get off the drugs. The benefits to the community is that the addicts would be in one area which means that we won't be finding discarded needles in our neighborhoods when we take the dog for a walk or kids to the park. They also say that crime will be reduced because people will not be so desperate. The spread of disease due to the sharing of needles is also said to be reduced by having a safe site.
The Cons in my mind is that we are coddling the addicts and removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high. Will they ever be inspired to get off the junk if the stigma from being a junkie is removed?
There is also the concern of how you view a addict. Are they a victim of a "disease" or did they do it to themselves so there is no one to blame but themselves?
Addicts are a huge drain on our resources and a danger to everyone either through crime, disease or even the first responders that are saving someone for the 4th time and they are busy they can't get to an accident scene quickly enough to save those victims.
Should we just let the addicts wither away of even die when they overdose?
These are all hard questions but do you think that safe injection sites for drug users is a good idea?
I think it is a good idea, as a stop-gap measure. But there's a conflict as long as heroin remains illegal. This sounds familiar: If it is illegal federally, then technically there can't be a "safe" place for addicts to go. Federal drug agents could walk in anytime they want.
Make it legal, don't call them "safe injection sites", and get the problem out of the criminal justice system. These "Treatment Centers" could then be funded by all the money we are currently wasting by fighting the problem the wrong way (The War on Drugs).
I have to admit I got a chuckle when you said "removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high". That is silly. First, the risk of getting addicted greatly outweighs the risk of getting caught. For someone who has made the decision to try something so risky, the law is the last thing on their mind. Second, many of today's addicts did not become addicted while "pursuing a high". Their addiction to heroin happened after the DEA threatened doctors to the point that some of them cut patients off their pain meds, cold-turkey. They were so addicted to them that they turned to street heroin in desperation. Do you really think throwing those people under the bus by running them through the criminal justice system is a good idea?
I think it is a good idea, as a stop-gap measure. But there's a conflict as long as heroin remains illegal. This sounds familiar: If it is illegal federally, then technically there can't be a "safe" place for addicts to go. Federal drug agents could walk in anytime they want.
Make it legal, don't call them "safe injection sites", and get the problem out of the criminal justice system. These "Treatment Centers" could then be funded by all the money we are currently wasting by fighting the problem the wrong way (The War on Drugs).
I have to admit I got a chuckle when you said "removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high". That is silly. First, the risk of getting addicted greatly outweighs the risk of getting caught. For someone who has made the decision to try something so risky, the law is the last thing on their mind. Second, many of today's addicts did not become addicted while "pursuing a high". Their addiction to heroin happened after the DEA threatened doctors to the point that some of them cut patients off their pain meds, cold-turkey. They were so addicted to them that they turned to street heroin in desperation. Do you really think throwing those people under the bus by running them through the criminal justice system is a good idea?
When I wrote "removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high" I didn't mean the risk of getting caught by the police I meant the risk of injecting yourself with unknown junk and never waking up.
The risk of death is enough to stop most people from doing something stupid that would risk their very life but for an addict it is all about the pursuit of the next high with no consideration for themselves, family or others.
I don't think making heroine legal is the way to go. In my area marijuana was made legal and now the towns and cities and trying to figure out what to do because no one wants a pot shop on their street. Imagine if heroine was made legal and the extra deaths that would happen.
Heroine is so dangerous but now far worse is infecting our communities like Fentanyl and Carfentanil. Both of those kill much quicker then heroine.
If we made heroine legal I think it would open up more problems
Perhaps we should treat addicted people like patients and not criminals and that is what the safe injection site is trying to do but you are right that the Police could raid the place at any moment.
I was just reading about a possible pilot program coming to my area where intravenous drug users would have a safe place to go to inject their heroine and there will be staff on hand to save them if they should overdose.
What do you think about this? Is it a good or bad idea?
The Pros are stated that they would be giving a safe place to shoot up and be watched in case they should overdose. They would also offer help to the addicts to get off the drugs. The benefits to the community is that the addicts would be in one area which means that we won't be finding discarded needles in our neighborhoods when we take the dog for a walk or kids to the park. They also say that crime will be reduced because people will not be so desperate. The spread of disease due to the sharing of needles is also said to be reduced by having a safe site.
The Cons in my mind is that we are coddling the addicts and removing the risks from their dangerous pursuit of the high. Will they ever be inspired to get off the junk if the stigma from being a junkie is removed?
There is also the concern of how you view a addict. Are they a victim of a "disease" or did they do it to themselves so there is no one to blame but themselves?
Addicts are a huge drain on our resources and a danger to everyone either through crime, disease or even the first responders that are saving someone for the 4th time and they are busy they can't get to an accident scene quickly enough to save those victims.
Should we just let the addicts wither away of even die when they overdose?
These are all hard questions but do you think that safe injection sites for drug users is a good idea?
I dunno - I guess that's why they are doing a pilot!
I'd rather they at least attempt to do some analysis from many angles in terms of effect on the population itself as well as impact on the community and cost effectiveness than just rely on opinion and assumptions.
Hmm, that just means they all hang out there, make the rest of the area undesireable for other people to live in. They don't just go there and shoot up and leave - they will hang around outside the building, sell/buy their drugs there, throw up on the street, yell and have music on, and socialize.
I have seen those places where they administer methadon to people. They go there every day to get their portion. And then they meet other people there, network, make more "bad" friends, it is a culmination of bad influences on each other.
I like it when they have free or very cheap needle machines in the cities with a secure trash can next to it. People go there buy their needle stuff and leave.
I can't say I support the government supplying addicts with heroin while 10's of thousands of otherwise productive citizens can't afford the better percription drugs they need to function for illnesses such as Parkinson's ect. These people are just expected to accept their plight and make do with whatever they can get covered. The message basically that they didn't work hard enough/plan well ensure a better level of care and society seems to just accept this as reasonable while they wither away silently, at best leading much less productive lives than they could have with better treatment. So we can't help these people, most of whom would do literally anything to regain their health, because there is no money while at the same time we strive to accommodate addicts making sure that THEY stay comforable and safe!!!
I would very much like to see these people helped but absolutely NOT by supporting their habits.
I don't support what they do and I don't support providing them with a place to do it. I guess I would support taking them away from the public and trying to help them get off drugs, and stay off.
There isn't enough money in the world but still, they should not be around anyone who they could drag down with them. They also shouldn't be wandering the streets, high. They shouldn't be buying or selling drugs. Having them out in the world is just adding to the problem because they will try to convert others to using drugs, not to mention the needles in the streets.
It may sound crazy, but ideally, I would be in favor of places to send them to keep them away from society. Not prisons, not hospitals, but large facilities where they get help but they have NO contact with anyone else. No way to entice anyone else to try drugs.
They did choose this life, one way or the other. I have sympathy if they were on drugs for pain and the medical profession should somehow figure out a way of helping these people. If they need pain medication, they should have it. But figure out some way that they can have it and use it safely.
For the others, the ones who knowingly chose drugs, no sympathy, but in deference to their families and friends who are the ones who are hurt, isolation from society while being treated. And if they don't recover, they stay isolated in the facility and no turning them out into society to spread this craziness to others. Some will find a way to get drugs and will die anyway.
I don't see shooting up heroin as normal and I don't want to see it treated as being normal. Go live in a facility. While there, either get well and probably leave someday or stay on drugs and live there for the rest of your life. It would be an alternative lifestyle, living on drugs for the rest of your life in a facility where you are provided with housing and three meals a day. That's about all we can do for those who will never recover and hopefully, for wannabe druggies, that lifestyle won't be very appealing.
I don't support what they do and I don't support providing them with a place to do it. I guess I would support taking them away from the public and trying to help them get off drugs, and stay off.
I don't see shooting up heroin as normal and I don't want to see it treated as being normal. Go live in a facility.
Are we experiencing a change in our society where shooting heroine is becoming the new normal.
It really is crazy when you consider the slow moral decay of America. What used to be taboo and against the law is now common.
The change started about 25 years ago and I would include things such as...
Tattoos and piercings, they are much more common today
Nudity and Sex, it is everywhere from Kim Kerdashian breaking the internet with naked photos to the sex scandals of our elected and TV anchors.
Gun violence, there are more guns out there and people are not afraid to use them for stupid reasons where a fist fight used to settle the problem.
Our Laws being flaunted, from it being nearly OK for illegal aliens to live here to a pass given to powerful people when they break the law.
Drug use, is becoming more socially acceptable from smoking pot to treating hard core drug use as a medical issue and the addict as a victim.
We have many festering problems and I'm really concerned what the next 25 years will bring to our decaying society.
Heroin, and all that it's usage implies, is simply one more facet of American life which heretofore was swept under the rug. Now that it's usage is considered widespread the usual suspects are clamoring about in a pseudo indignation mode, claiming the moral high ground, while tying drug use to their favorite, but feared societal demons. Shooting galleries? Well, it's a substance which has utilized needles, so, yeah, we should be looking at some form of control if for no other reason than needles lying about are probably not a good idea.
We, as a nation have been way to slow in recognizing the real danger of drugs, and that is the criminal penalties for it's use. Like the many other substance we've outlawed, Heroin and Meth have been growing in popularity, marketed aggressively, and manufactured in ever greater quantities. Education and medical intervention seems to be the path to prevention, or, we can continue doing the same old countermeasure stuff by engaging law enforcement and our prisons, insanity=doing the same thing over and over while expecting different outcomes. When one path fails, try a new path.
Trotting out one's favorite moral pony, and then riding it around the forum proclaiming that "the end is near," serves no real purpose, further, drug use isn't the moral affront to the public well being that media insists it is. Addiction is in the medical realm when viewed in it's base form, overdosing, withdrawal, injection hygiene, and all too often, the poor diet of those so afflicted, are all best treated by medical personnel, not the police, courts, and the prison system. The placement of the safe sites should be well thought out, maybe even utilizing mobile units to discourage the congregating mentioned in another post.
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