4 ms·

I'll need to see a source for this. It is contrary to basically all public health research I've read about.

by tfourb 3y ago

whimsicalism 3y ago
It's certainly true in San Francisco that many more people now are dying of drug overdoses & they have also implemented a number of harm reduction measures in recent years. But of course there are plenty of confounders during that period.
- beardog 3y ago
  Could it be that (largely homeless) drug addicts are moving to cities more tolerant of homeless drug addicts? edit: Apparently not https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/ https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-...
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    You are not going to get a straight answer to this question online, the stats are currently being warred over. The current winning narrative is that most homeless people are from the Bay Area because that is what the stats say is 'where they most recently became homeless' but if you drill down deeper and look at how long people have been here, you'll find most people came to the Bay to access homeless services or social services, became briefly not homeless (perhaps staying with a friend or in a shelter), and then became homeless again. If they were instead to ask, where did you first become homeless or where were you born, the results would likely be considerably different. Based on the evidence I have seen, it does seem like harm reduction works to some degree, but if it is only implemented by individual cities you get a tragedy of the commons where the city that implements the progressive policy pulls homeless people from the rest of the country. There needs to be federal action but they are way too afraid of backlash to do anything.
    - beardog 3y ago
      I see. I suppose there are different ways to define homelessness too. If i couch surf, I would say I am homeless but if i start tossing the owners $250/mo to let me crash, am I now a tenant? We need agreed upon ways to calculate these problems. "no long term permanent residence" doesn't work either because it would not be accurate to include wealthy nomads.
- tfourb 3y ago
  San Francisco also experienced a number of events that could have significantly impacted drug deaths, i.e. pandemic, recession, housing crisis, fentanyl, etc. etc. You'd have to carefully control for the impact of these events to make an empirical claim that harm reduction efforts lead to more drug deaths, especially because it makes on the face of it no sense that i.e. needle exchange programs would lead to more drug overdoses.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    > it makes on the face of it no sense that i.e. needle exchange programs would lead to more drug overdoses. I don't agree that it makes 'no sense' but as I said in my original comment - there are plenty of confounders. Thank you for listing some of them.

I'll need to see a source for this. It is contrary to basically all public health research I've read about.

by tfourb 3y ago

I'll need to see a source for this. It is contrary to basically all public health research I've read about.

It's certainly true in San Francisco that many more people now are dying of drug overdoses & they have also implemented a number of harm reduction measures in recent years. But of course there are plenty of confounders during that period.

beardog 3y ago
Could it be that (largely homeless) drug addicts are moving to cities more tolerant of homeless drug addicts? edit: Apparently not https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/ https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-...
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  You are not going to get a straight answer to this question online, the stats are currently being warred over. The current winning narrative is that most homeless people are from the Bay Area because that is what the stats say is 'where they most recently became homeless' but if you drill down deeper and look at how long people have been here, you'll find most people came to the Bay to access homeless services or social services, became briefly not homeless (perhaps staying with a friend or in a shelter), and then became homeless again. If they were instead to ask, where did you first become homeless or where were you born, the results would likely be considerably different. Based on the evidence I have seen, it does seem like harm reduction works to some degree, but if it is only implemented by individual cities you get a tragedy of the commons where the city that implements the progressive policy pulls homeless people from the rest of the country. There needs to be federal action but they are way too afraid of backlash to do anything.
  - beardog 3y ago
    I see. I suppose there are different ways to define homelessness too. If i couch surf, I would say I am homeless but if i start tossing the owners $250/mo to let me crash, am I now a tenant? We need agreed upon ways to calculate these problems. "no long term permanent residence" doesn't work either because it would not be accurate to include wealthy nomads.
tfourb 3y ago
San Francisco also experienced a number of events that could have significantly impacted drug deaths, i.e. pandemic, recession, housing crisis, fentanyl, etc. etc. You'd have to carefully control for the impact of these events to make an empirical claim that harm reduction efforts lead to more drug deaths, especially because it makes on the face of it no sense that i.e. needle exchange programs would lead to more drug overdoses.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  > it makes on the face of it no sense that i.e. needle exchange programs would lead to more drug overdoses. I don't agree that it makes 'no sense' but as I said in my original comment - there are plenty of confounders. Thank you for listing some of them.