10 ms·

Reminds me of needle exchanges, and the harm they brought to neighborhoods that opened them out of the 'goodness' of their hearts, only to end up turning their

by Manu40 4y ago

Reminds me of needle exchanges, and the harm they brought to neighborhoods that opened them out of the 'goodness' of their hearts, only to end up turning their neighborhood into the newest drug slum. Or at least that's been my experience so far in any city I have lived in that has one near my current location. One place I even moved to and from again twice, and got to see the before and after through the decade essentially. It's like night and day. Absolutely no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise that these programs are a good idea, especially when the best idea is to just remove these people from urban centers by tossing them into rehab out in the country side where they can't get these drugs easily. I've seen that work wonders by comparison; and it doesn't ruin neighborhoods which gives NIMBY's a legitimate excuse to do things like round up the homeless and put them in jails. Which I do not agree with, but understand their grief. The very act is a breach of their natural rights as a human being, and let's not get me started on my opinions about how housing should be a natural human right irrevocable by anyone or anything. The yellow brick road is paved not by the demons among us, but those who think themselves angels. Edit: I'm going to sleep now folks, so if I don't respond to anyone after this point of 7:15am CST-6, that's why. You all have a nice day, and/or a nice night.

manholio 4y ago
> needle exchanges... end up turning their neighborhood into the newest drug slum. How do you suppose that happened? Do you think there was a severely addicted population that could not get their fix due to concerns of transmittable diseases? So were forced to quit cold turkey, at the height of their despair, for lack of sanitary injection paraphernalia? You surely realize how absurd that sounds, right? Since you seem to be a well reasoned and articulate person, I'm genuinely curious how could a needle exchange program cause neighborhoods to turn into "drug slums"? Perhaps you are seeing a correlation with drug use that does not reveal any causality? Perhaps needle exchange programs induce normalization of drug use in a certain area, making addicts fell less rejected and thus attracting them there? But surely such a visible concentration of addicts in a certain area is just a symptom a much larger invisible problem and condemning those those affected to AIDS or Hep-C does nothing to solve the root cause?
- Manu40 4y ago
  Well, I have no way to prove my experience through data, since it's not being taken by any reputable sources I know of, sadly... But what I can say at least is that I would suspect that the 'drug slum' aspect occurs because the drug users flock towards those needle exchanges and congregate near them for convenience sake. I say that, because that's what seemed to be the case when I lived in those areas. People I never saw in those neighborhoods before, suddenly practically lived there. So I suspect that is the case. Anyways, it's getting late and my patience is starting to wear thin, so I should probably go now before nicer folk like you start to think of me as less well reasoned and less articulate a person.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    I'm sure that you blame ghettos on the people that live in them rather than the systems developed to have intentional concentrative effects. It's funny how intelligent people stop thinking the moment their emotions kick in.
    - Manu40 4y ago
      Actually, I think it's a problem that can be blamed on the entirety of society. But thanks for your kind comment. And yes, I agree with you about emotions and intelligence. Quite the phenomenon.
    - arminiusreturns 4y ago
      Isn't what gp is doing the opposite, and is in fact blaming the system developed (needle stations) for abnormally concentrating drug users on an area? I don't know why such an admittedly anecdotal observation has generated such response... Its not that hard to at least entertain the idea that clean drug-equipment stations might have side effects and impacts to the surrounding community that haven't been properly studied yet, etc.
    - dbsmith83 4y ago
      More funny when emotional people refuse to see simple cause and effect
Verdex 4y ago
The end there reminds me of the CS Lewis quote: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
- Manu40 4y ago
  I just told the other fellow I'm logging off for the night, but I would hate to seem rude and as if I am ignoring your apt comment. Yes, CS Lewis has a lot of good quotes. I don't remember them all by heart or anything, but I do find myself somehow paraphrasing things that he and others have said before in more eloquent words.
- yunwal 4y ago
  What a weird way to use this quote. Tyranny is when someone does something oppressive. Offering a free service that no one needs to use doesn’t fit the criteria.
  - afiori 4y ago
    I do not really want to comment on whether it is an appropriate use, but obviously the tormented peasants in the comment are implied to be the residents in the area.
- tevon 4y ago
  "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." - Mark Twain
f38zf5vdt 4y ago
It's been the opposite experience for me, but where I lived doctors just give the addicts drugs that are similar to their drugs of choice. Man has to eat, addicts has to use. When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear.
- Manu40 4y ago
  Fair enough, as far as opposite experience goes. Up here, doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it. Which in turn I would say has led to people relying on the grey market more and more, which has in turn led to our fentanyl crisis. So I don't entirely disagree with you here, but I still don't want government being able to tax these things. We need a better solution.
  - afiori 4y ago
    You might find this post interesting: > https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo... It is about what can go wrong when "doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it". It is been a while since I read it, I don't remember whether it touches on homelessness.
  - f38zf5vdt 4y ago
    The government doesn't tax them here. They're free, because the cost of the drugs is less than the cost of the crime prevented by just giving them out.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  "When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear." California has legalized marijuana for many years and there's still a strong cartel presence in marijuana trafficking. Cartels still find a way to profit from marijuana, other drugs, and immigration. I find the notion that making fentanyl available at no cost being good for society by removing cartel involvement to be completely nonsensical. The end result is still the same. You still have a substance on the street that is fatal in incredibly small doses, and being used as fillers in party- and counterfeit drugs. Legalizing fentanyl isn't going to alter that dynamic nor change the drug's lethality. So no, the criminal aspects just don't disappear. They merely adapt.
genghisjahn 4y ago
Which cities? What city did you live in twice? What time period are you talking about?
- Manu40 4y ago
  Sorry Genghis, but I don't believe I need to answer these questions about where I lived, as they are personal information. I will however tell you they were all Canadian cities, and they were all between the years 2008 and now. The one that was twice was one of the prairie provinces cities. Take that as you will.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> [1] NIDA-funded research has found that syringe services programs do not increase drug use. In fact, program participants in these studies were significantly more likely to enter substance use treatment and reduce or stop drug use. As an aside, this is the second time on this site in a couple days I've seen someone post something along the lines of "Absolutely no one will be able to convince me otherwise no matter what." So why are you posting here at all? You've already proudly announced that your opinions are impervious to any new information. That is the exact opposite purpose of this site. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/syringe-services-programs#do-syringe-services https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/syringe-services-progra...
- Manu40 4y ago
  Well, I said in my edit and some other comments I was going to sleep, but I decided to check here again for some reason... and here we are. So I guess I will point out that (I am pretty sure) I never said it increased drug use. I said that it turned the neighborhoods that held these places into drug slums because of the increase in drug users that were now in those areas because of the needle exchange. To be fair to you though, that was elaborated on more so in another comment to another person. And it is on that bit that I will not budge, because that is personal experience I have witnessed and secondary experience I have been told about by people I trust to not just make things up. It may not be the 'data' you want to see or hear, but it should matter just as much since what we see on a day to day is what influences us as a society. So I think it's great that some of them are taking the chance provided to them to get clean. I love that. But again, I never said it increased drug use. I said it increased the number of drug users in the area. This is a glaringly different statement. Now, I am actually off to bed now, and my computer is being turned off. You have a nice day/night. Thank you for the information.
  - strgcmc 4y ago
    Not trying to pile on you individually but this is an interesting line of thought in general, so continuing the thread here... Let's say there are 10 nearby cities with drug addicts. Let's say 3 of them start running needle exchanges or other "drug friendly" policies. By this logic, if those policies don't increase drug use, but do attract users, then maybe we just made 7 cities drug-free, and 3 cities into concentrated zones where social programs as well as law enforcement can be more targeted and more effective? If so, then very likely this will be a net-positive for the 10 cities as a whole, with neutral to slightly-worse outcomes for the target neighborhoods in the 3 cities running the programs. Many programs/policies are not operated from a macro-enough perspective, or not optimizing for macro-level outcomes, or humans just aren't capable of macro-enough greater-good decision-making. If the 10-20 homeowners living directly next to the proposed needle exchange site can veto it, that might be better for them individually, but worse as a whole for the city/state/nation/world. See exhibit: NYC and proposals for new shelter sites. On the other hand, seems like these sorts of debates always just end up becoming examples to prove out Churchill's "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried" claim.
throwaway742 4y ago
Want's to move drug users to "the country side". Doesn't like NIMBYs.

by Manu40 4y ago

manholio 4y ago

> needle exchanges... end up turning their neighborhood into the newest drug slum. How do you suppose that happened? Do you think there was a severely addicted population that could not get their fix due to concerns of transmittable diseases? So were forced to quit cold turkey, at the height of their despair, for lack of sanitary injection paraphernalia? You surely realize how absurd that sounds, right? Since you seem to be a well reasoned and articulate person, I'm genuinely curious how could a needle exchange program cause neighborhoods to turn into "drug slums"? Perhaps you are seeing a correlation with drug use that does not reveal any causality? Perhaps needle exchange programs induce normalization of drug use in a certain area, making addicts fell less rejected and thus attracting them there? But surely such a visible concentration of addicts in a certain area is just a symptom a much larger invisible problem and condemning those those affected to AIDS or Hep-C does nothing to solve the root cause?

Manu40 4y ago
Well, I have no way to prove my experience through data, since it's not being taken by any reputable sources I know of, sadly... But what I can say at least is that I would suspect that the 'drug slum' aspect occurs because the drug users flock towards those needle exchanges and congregate near them for convenience sake. I say that, because that's what seemed to be the case when I lived in those areas. People I never saw in those neighborhoods before, suddenly practically lived there. So I suspect that is the case. Anyways, it's getting late and my patience is starting to wear thin, so I should probably go now before nicer folk like you start to think of me as less well reasoned and less articulate a person.
- pixl97 4y ago
  I'm sure that you blame ghettos on the people that live in them rather than the systems developed to have intentional concentrative effects. It's funny how intelligent people stop thinking the moment their emotions kick in.
  - Manu40 4y ago
    Actually, I think it's a problem that can be blamed on the entirety of society. But thanks for your kind comment. And yes, I agree with you about emotions and intelligence. Quite the phenomenon.
  - arminiusreturns 4y ago
    Isn't what gp is doing the opposite, and is in fact blaming the system developed (needle stations) for abnormally concentrating drug users on an area? I don't know why such an admittedly anecdotal observation has generated such response... Its not that hard to at least entertain the idea that clean drug-equipment stations might have side effects and impacts to the surrounding community that haven't been properly studied yet, etc.
  - dbsmith83 4y ago
    More funny when emotional people refuse to see simple cause and effect

Verdex 4y ago

The end there reminds me of the CS Lewis quote: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Manu40 4y ago
I just told the other fellow I'm logging off for the night, but I would hate to seem rude and as if I am ignoring your apt comment. Yes, CS Lewis has a lot of good quotes. I don't remember them all by heart or anything, but I do find myself somehow paraphrasing things that he and others have said before in more eloquent words.
yunwal 4y ago
What a weird way to use this quote. Tyranny is when someone does something oppressive. Offering a free service that no one needs to use doesn’t fit the criteria.
- afiori 4y ago
  I do not really want to comment on whether it is an appropriate use, but obviously the tormented peasants in the comment are implied to be the residents in the area.
tevon 4y ago
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." - Mark Twain

f38zf5vdt 4y ago

It's been the opposite experience for me, but where I lived doctors just give the addicts drugs that are similar to their drugs of choice. Man has to eat, addicts has to use. When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear.

Manu40 4y ago
Fair enough, as far as opposite experience goes. Up here, doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it. Which in turn I would say has led to people relying on the grey market more and more, which has in turn led to our fentanyl crisis. So I don't entirely disagree with you here, but I still don't want government being able to tax these things. We need a better solution.
- afiori 4y ago
  You might find this post interesting: > https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo... It is about what can go wrong when "doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it". It is been a while since I read it, I don't remember whether it touches on homelessness.
- f38zf5vdt 4y ago
  The government doesn't tax them here. They're free, because the cost of the drugs is less than the cost of the crime prevented by just giving them out.
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
"When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear." California has legalized marijuana for many years and there's still a strong cartel presence in marijuana trafficking. Cartels still find a way to profit from marijuana, other drugs, and immigration. I find the notion that making fentanyl available at no cost being good for society by removing cartel involvement to be completely nonsensical. The end result is still the same. You still have a substance on the street that is fatal in incredibly small doses, and being used as fillers in party- and counterfeit drugs. Legalizing fentanyl isn't going to alter that dynamic nor change the drug's lethality. So no, the criminal aspects just don't disappear. They merely adapt.

genghisjahn 4y ago

Which cities? What city did you live in twice? What time period are you talking about?

Manu40 4y ago
Sorry Genghis, but I don't believe I need to answer these questions about where I lived, as they are personal information. I will however tell you they were all Canadian cities, and they were all between the years 2008 and now. The one that was twice was one of the prairie provinces cities. Take that as you will.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> [1] NIDA-funded research has found that syringe services programs do not increase drug use. In fact, program participants in these studies were significantly more likely to enter substance use treatment and reduce or stop drug use. As an aside, this is the second time on this site in a couple days I've seen someone post something along the lines of "Absolutely no one will be able to convince me otherwise no matter what." So why are you posting here at all? You've already proudly announced that your opinions are impervious to any new information. That is the exact opposite purpose of this site. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/syringe-services-programs#do-syringe-services https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/syringe-services-progra...

Manu40 4y ago
Well, I said in my edit and some other comments I was going to sleep, but I decided to check here again for some reason... and here we are. So I guess I will point out that (I am pretty sure) I never said it increased drug use. I said that it turned the neighborhoods that held these places into drug slums because of the increase in drug users that were now in those areas because of the needle exchange. To be fair to you though, that was elaborated on more so in another comment to another person. And it is on that bit that I will not budge, because that is personal experience I have witnessed and secondary experience I have been told about by people I trust to not just make things up. It may not be the 'data' you want to see or hear, but it should matter just as much since what we see on a day to day is what influences us as a society. So I think it's great that some of them are taking the chance provided to them to get clean. I love that. But again, I never said it increased drug use. I said it increased the number of drug users in the area. This is a glaringly different statement. Now, I am actually off to bed now, and my computer is being turned off. You have a nice day/night. Thank you for the information.
- strgcmc 4y ago
  Not trying to pile on you individually but this is an interesting line of thought in general, so continuing the thread here... Let's say there are 10 nearby cities with drug addicts. Let's say 3 of them start running needle exchanges or other "drug friendly" policies. By this logic, if those policies don't increase drug use, but do attract users, then maybe we just made 7 cities drug-free, and 3 cities into concentrated zones where social programs as well as law enforcement can be more targeted and more effective? If so, then very likely this will be a net-positive for the 10 cities as a whole, with neutral to slightly-worse outcomes for the target neighborhoods in the 3 cities running the programs. Many programs/policies are not operated from a macro-enough perspective, or not optimizing for macro-level outcomes, or humans just aren't capable of macro-enough greater-good decision-making. If the 10-20 homeowners living directly next to the proposed needle exchange site can veto it, that might be better for them individually, but worse as a whole for the city/state/nation/world. See exhibit: NYC and proposals for new shelter sites. On the other hand, seems like these sorts of debates always just end up becoming examples to prove out Churchill's "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried" claim.

throwaway742 4y ago

Want's to move drug users to "the country side". Doesn't like NIMBYs.