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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 po
by 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 agoMaybe 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 agoSo 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 agoIt’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.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoThat’s interesting, what country are you in? I don’t think I’ve heard of any safe injection places outside large cities.
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- hdlothia 3y agoHow do they measure detriment? One interesting thing I felt while reading the article was that many of her complaints like having to sweep up syringes or people defecating in the street would not be registered as crimes. How would you even quantify the feeling of frustration at seeing someone defecate next to a car in the street. Seems like a very complicated issue to measure scientifically.
- johann12 3y agoResearch in politically charged topics will be subject to many forces regarding what gets published. It's incredibly naive to think otherwise.
- rokkitmensch 3y agoMy guess is that this kind of research is even less rigorously performed than the p-hackers that are still getting unearthed. NGO folks with an axe to grind aren't the folks I'd expect to embrace RCT.