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Addiction Activists Say They're 'Reducing Harm' Locals Say They're Causing It

16 points by Jimmc414 3y ago

brohee 3y ago
Drug policy is perhaps the area where ideology clashes with reality the most. Both too hard and too soft stances are super counter-productive, it takes a very pragmatic approach to achieve a good result. Portugal may be the best example of success, but I'm pretty sure you can find faults to its policy. https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00394-7#:~:text=An%20example%20of%20this%20is,required%20for%20an%20average%20individual's https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1...
- woleium 3y ago
  Portugal did well until funding for the program was slashed. Now its not so great there
algesten 3y ago
This style of reporting is so irritating. Surrounding facts and statistics in a heart felt drama of suffering and human angle. Of course I feel for Sonja Bingham, but if I'm trying to get my head around the consequences of Harm Reduction, I want facts, statistics clearly laid out with analysis by (named) experts in the field.
- hdlothia 3y ago
  I disagree, you need both. Statistics sometimes obscure the reality of what's happening and can't be relied upon in a vacuum. I recently learned about on hn about a story where Amazon's statistics proved that there was no wait time problem on it's phone lines even though it was a common customer complaints. We need a mix of statistical analysis and first hand accounts. Source: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/95066/jeff-bezos-explains-the-legendary-call-he-made-to-amazon-customer-service/index.html https://www.tweaktown.com/news/95066/jeff-bezos-explains-the...
  - threatofrain 3y ago
    Get enough first hand accounts and you can do stats!
  - PlunderBunny 3y ago
    "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin [0] (To be clear, I'm agreeing with the point that you need both) [0] Or maybe not - see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/
light_hue_1 3y ago
This is an area where I totally don't understand the research. In MA they tried to convince the public to allow facilities to use drugs. And they constantly point to research that shows there's no increase in crime or detriment to the local community. And you know what. They're right. That's overwhelmingly what the research shows. Even research that focuses on Vancouver. But I've been to Hastings street. The area where the use facilities are is not safe. And it has definitely harmed the local community. You can see that with your own eyeballs. You can say that it's helped people who use drugs, ok, but that it hasn't changed the community seems absurd to say. So I don't get it. How can people's lived experiences be so far away from what these papers say? How can the experts in the field say things that seem so obviously false? Is there something wrong with what they're measuring? Is there really no harm at all, then what explains the state of Hastings? The only time I've tried to get answers professionally I couldn't get anywhere. In all of the research that I'm involved with when simple observations disagree with our models and benchmarks we update the models and benchmarks. If this whole research area wasn't toxic it would be interesting to look into more seriously. But I suspect that many scientists stay away because of the bad blood.
- brohee 3y ago
  Maybe the research is worthless because of data quality issues. Pushing all the junkies on an area where people don't trust the police isn't a good way to have accurate statistics on the increase (or lack of) in crime. But also there could be a feeling of insecurity that is disconnected from reality, but with the state of social sciences, hard to know...
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  So maybe you need to update your benchmark. What do you think Hastings used to look like, that makes it confusing to think “Hastings is unsafe” and “safe injection locations don’t make places unsafe”? Travis Lupick’s book about the origins of the place might be interesting for you.
  - throwthrowuknow 3y ago
    It’s happened in more places than just large cities with historically bad neighborhoods. In my city it transformed a small working class neighborhood into ground zero for drug addicts and crime after they opened one. The people using the site are not getting better in any way and now that they all congregate in one area and get high they are causing a lot more damage to the community.
imgabe 3y ago
It’s not “harm reduction”, it’s enabling. Drugs are supposed to be harmful. They’re drugs. That’s nature’s way of telling you that you need to stop doing them. Take away the harm and you just have an eternal drug addict.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
This is a terrible piece. A woman who is mad about her neighborhood and blames a local program for the neighborhood following lockstep with federal trends. Arguing for a return to the policing style of the crack panic as racial fairness is a thin veneer over “we got screwed: now burn it all down”.
- brohee 3y ago
  So she can dispose of the syringes she sweeps on your kids playground? Easy to criticize her, when it's not your neighborhood being ruined. Also I didn't think she was arguing for indiscriminately locking the addicts, she just couldn't help but notice policing was different when white people were involved...
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    Needle exchanges are an evidence based, immediate way to reduce the presence of discarded needles on the street. Safe injection sites prevent the needles getting on the street in the first place.
    - hdlothia 3y ago
      The activists are in her neighborhood handing out needles already, why are there still syringes for her to clean? How come the Savage Sisters have time to hand out needles and lecture but not enough time to grab a broom and clean up after their 'friends'?
- jcdijcduvf 3y ago
  [flagged]
hdlothia 3y ago
I have found that a lot of modern activists are more concerned with people who quit trying fit in to society than people who do fit in but are struggling. Anti social junkies, convicted murderers, panhandlers ,convicted rapists will all have long lines of credentialed activists and ngos defending their rights to squat in the street and break things. Regular working people like barbers and kitchen workers who work hard to make ends meet are are not needy enough to to satisfy the activists' savior complexes. These harm reduction/ police abolitionist types have an ideological point to prove and they don't care how many of us they have to sacrifice to prove it.
- justanotherjoe 3y ago
  The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  > Regular working people like barbers and kitchen workers who work hard to make ends meet are are not needy enough to to satisfy the activists' savior complexes. There are lots of people trying to help regular workers. Like trying to get them into unions with bargaining power, increases to minimum wages, improvements to worker safety laws and enforcement, something like universal public health care would be an incredible lift for struggling workers. People are actively trying to do all these things. Its just very difficult because there are powerful forces resisting all of them.

16 points by Jimmc414 3y ago

Drug policy is perhaps the area where ideology clashes with reality the most. Both too hard and too soft stances are super counter-productive, it takes a very pragmatic approach to achieve a good result. Portugal may be the best example of success, but I'm pretty sure you can find faults to its policy. https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00394-7#:~:text=An%20example%20of%20this%20is,required%20for%20an%20average%20individual's https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1...

woleium 3y ago
Portugal did well until funding for the program was slashed. Now its not so great there

algesten 3y ago

This style of reporting is so irritating. Surrounding facts and statistics in a heart felt drama of suffering and human angle. Of course I feel for Sonja Bingham, but if I'm trying to get my head around the consequences of Harm Reduction, I want facts, statistics clearly laid out with analysis by (named) experts in the field.

hdlothia 3y ago
I disagree, you need both. Statistics sometimes obscure the reality of what's happening and can't be relied upon in a vacuum. I recently learned about on hn about a story where Amazon's statistics proved that there was no wait time problem on it's phone lines even though it was a common customer complaints. We need a mix of statistical analysis and first hand accounts. Source: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/95066/jeff-bezos-explains-the-legendary-call-he-made-to-amazon-customer-service/index.html https://www.tweaktown.com/news/95066/jeff-bezos-explains-the...
- threatofrain 3y ago
  Get enough first hand accounts and you can do stats!
- PlunderBunny 3y ago
  "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin [0] (To be clear, I'm agreeing with the point that you need both) [0] Or maybe not - see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/

light_hue_1 3y ago

This is an area where I totally don't understand the research. In MA they tried to convince the public to allow facilities to use drugs. And they constantly point to research that shows there's no increase in crime or detriment to the local community. And you know what. They're right. That's overwhelmingly what the research shows. Even research that focuses on Vancouver. But I've been to Hastings street. The area where the use facilities are is not safe. And it has definitely harmed the local community. You can see that with your own eyeballs. You can say that it's helped people who use drugs, ok, but that it hasn't changed the community seems absurd to say. So I don't get it. How can people's lived experiences be so far away from what these papers say? How can the experts in the field say things that seem so obviously false? Is there something wrong with what they're measuring? Is there really no harm at all, then what explains the state of Hastings? The only time I've tried to get answers professionally I couldn't get anywhere. In all of the research that I'm involved with when simple observations disagree with our models and benchmarks we update the models and benchmarks. If this whole research area wasn't toxic it would be interesting to look into more seriously. But I suspect that many scientists stay away because of the bad blood.

brohee 3y ago
Maybe the research is worthless because of data quality issues. Pushing all the junkies on an area where people don't trust the police isn't a good way to have accurate statistics on the increase (or lack of) in crime. But also there could be a feeling of insecurity that is disconnected from reality, but with the state of social sciences, hard to know...
lazyasciiart 3y ago
So maybe you need to update your benchmark. What do you think Hastings used to look like, that makes it confusing to think “Hastings is unsafe” and “safe injection locations don’t make places unsafe”? Travis Lupick’s book about the origins of the place might be interesting for you.
- throwthrowuknow 3y ago
  It’s happened in more places than just large cities with historically bad neighborhoods. In my city it transformed a small working class neighborhood into ground zero for drug addicts and crime after they opened one. The people using the site are not getting better in any way and now that they all congregate in one area and get high they are causing a lot more damage to the community.

imgabe 3y ago

It’s not “harm reduction”, it’s enabling. Drugs are supposed to be harmful. They’re drugs. That’s nature’s way of telling you that you need to stop doing them. Take away the harm and you just have an eternal drug addict.

lazyasciiart 3y ago

This is a terrible piece. A woman who is mad about her neighborhood and blames a local program for the neighborhood following lockstep with federal trends. Arguing for a return to the policing style of the crack panic as racial fairness is a thin veneer over “we got screwed: now burn it all down”.

brohee 3y ago
So she can dispose of the syringes she sweeps on your kids playground? Easy to criticize her, when it's not your neighborhood being ruined. Also I didn't think she was arguing for indiscriminately locking the addicts, she just couldn't help but notice policing was different when white people were involved...
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Needle exchanges are an evidence based, immediate way to reduce the presence of discarded needles on the street. Safe injection sites prevent the needles getting on the street in the first place.
  - hdlothia 3y ago
    The activists are in her neighborhood handing out needles already, why are there still syringes for her to clean? How come the Savage Sisters have time to hand out needles and lecture but not enough time to grab a broom and clean up after their 'friends'?
jcdijcduvf 3y ago
[flagged]

hdlothia 3y ago

I have found that a lot of modern activists are more concerned with people who quit trying fit in to society than people who do fit in but are struggling. Anti social junkies, convicted murderers, panhandlers ,convicted rapists will all have long lines of credentialed activists and ngos defending their rights to squat in the street and break things. Regular working people like barbers and kitchen workers who work hard to make ends meet are are not needy enough to to satisfy the activists' savior complexes. These harm reduction/ police abolitionist types have an ideological point to prove and they don't care how many of us they have to sacrifice to prove it.

justanotherjoe 3y ago
The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
> Regular working people like barbers and kitchen workers who work hard to make ends meet are are not needy enough to to satisfy the activists' savior complexes. There are lots of people trying to help regular workers. Like trying to get them into unions with bargaining power, increases to minimum wages, improvements to worker safety laws and enforcement, something like universal public health care would be an incredible lift for struggling workers. People are actively trying to do all these things. Its just very difficult because there are powerful forces resisting all of them.