Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
12-06-2005, 08:55 PM
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Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
Health authorities in Canada's westernmost province want to make the country's first test facility for heroin injection permanent and are considering opening additional clinics to meet the huge demand. The Vancouver facility was set up in 2003, against US opposition, as a three-year experiment exempt from Canadian drug laws.
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Since then the clinic, North America's only such operation, has run at capacity, with some 800 heroin injections daily.
"It's all-round positive, with no downsides," said Perry Kendall, British Columbia province's chief medical officer.
Kendall said the clinic achieved its goal to cut overdose deaths and rates of hepatitis and HIV infection. Although its exemption from drug laws will not expire until September 2006, this month he applied to Health Canada to make the facility permanent.
With a federal election currently underway in Canada, a decision will likely take months.
The clinic looks like an innocuous storefront in Vancouvers squalid Downtown Eastside district, Canada's most impoverished neighbourhood with more than 5,000 heroin addicts concentrated in a 10-block area.
Addicts bring in drugs purchased illegally on the street, and self-inject them under medical supervision. There are onsite emergency services in case of overdose and staff nurses and counselors to provide health care and referrals to rehabilitation facilities.
Worldwide, about 50 similar clinics operate routinely, mostly in Europe.
As in Europe, Canadian public opinion has changed to view drug addiction as a health issue instead of a purely criminal matter.
But drug issues here are affected by the proximity to the United States with its official war on drugs.
The Vancouver clinic is a stone's throw from the border with Washington state, and since it opened the White House has criticized it as an "inhumane" medical experiment.
The United States also opposes a new experiment in Vancouver to give addicts free prescription heroin in hopes of reducing property crimes to feed their habit.
Ironically, the success of Vancouvers supervised heroin use site led to another controversy this month, as Vancouver police launched a crackdown on public drug use.
For years police have turned a blind eye in some areas to thousands of addicts shooting up on sidewalks, streets and in public buildings such as libraries, and leaving behind used syringes.
Police now say because addicts can use the supervised facility, they will be stopped from injecting in public.
"The police recognize drug addiction as a health issue... but police must step in when the addicts' activities interfere with other people's lives," police said in a statement.
"Children should be able to use (park playground) swings and not have to worry about pricking themselves with needles buried in the sand," said police Inspector Bob Rolls.
Advocates for drug users protested that the police crackdown is cruel because the clinic can only serve a minority of drug users.
"It's just a really destructive thing," said Ann Livingston of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
She notes that the supervised site can handle just 800 of 15,000 heroin injections daily, and staff are prohibited from physically injecting addicts or letting other addicts inject incapacitated users.
There's also no place for addicts who smoke cocaine, said Livingston.
Livingston called for a relaxation in clinic rules and the establishment of at least four more clinics in Vancouver.
Kendall agreed that the fact the police crackdown is causing an overflow at the injection site "may make an argument for opening up more sites."
CLIFFNOTES: Canada opens a store front with professional medical staff to help people shoot heroin correctly. They are also pushing for horoin perscriptions to combat property crime. (Fucken losers)
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Since then the clinic, North America's only such operation, has run at capacity, with some 800 heroin injections daily.
"It's all-round positive, with no downsides," said Perry Kendall, British Columbia province's chief medical officer.
Kendall said the clinic achieved its goal to cut overdose deaths and rates of hepatitis and HIV infection. Although its exemption from drug laws will not expire until September 2006, this month he applied to Health Canada to make the facility permanent.
With a federal election currently underway in Canada, a decision will likely take months.
The clinic looks like an innocuous storefront in Vancouvers squalid Downtown Eastside district, Canada's most impoverished neighbourhood with more than 5,000 heroin addicts concentrated in a 10-block area.
Addicts bring in drugs purchased illegally on the street, and self-inject them under medical supervision. There are onsite emergency services in case of overdose and staff nurses and counselors to provide health care and referrals to rehabilitation facilities.
Worldwide, about 50 similar clinics operate routinely, mostly in Europe.
As in Europe, Canadian public opinion has changed to view drug addiction as a health issue instead of a purely criminal matter.
But drug issues here are affected by the proximity to the United States with its official war on drugs.
The Vancouver clinic is a stone's throw from the border with Washington state, and since it opened the White House has criticized it as an "inhumane" medical experiment.
The United States also opposes a new experiment in Vancouver to give addicts free prescription heroin in hopes of reducing property crimes to feed their habit.
Ironically, the success of Vancouvers supervised heroin use site led to another controversy this month, as Vancouver police launched a crackdown on public drug use.
For years police have turned a blind eye in some areas to thousands of addicts shooting up on sidewalks, streets and in public buildings such as libraries, and leaving behind used syringes.
Police now say because addicts can use the supervised facility, they will be stopped from injecting in public.
"The police recognize drug addiction as a health issue... but police must step in when the addicts' activities interfere with other people's lives," police said in a statement.
"Children should be able to use (park playground) swings and not have to worry about pricking themselves with needles buried in the sand," said police Inspector Bob Rolls.
Advocates for drug users protested that the police crackdown is cruel because the clinic can only serve a minority of drug users.
"It's just a really destructive thing," said Ann Livingston of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
She notes that the supervised site can handle just 800 of 15,000 heroin injections daily, and staff are prohibited from physically injecting addicts or letting other addicts inject incapacitated users.
There's also no place for addicts who smoke cocaine, said Livingston.
Livingston called for a relaxation in clinic rules and the establishment of at least four more clinics in Vancouver.
Kendall agreed that the fact the police crackdown is causing an overflow at the injection site "may make an argument for opening up more sites."
CLIFFNOTES: Canada opens a store front with professional medical staff to help people shoot heroin correctly. They are also pushing for horoin perscriptions to combat property crime. (Fucken losers)
12-06-2005, 09:16 PM
#2
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 828
Re: Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
its interesting that canada is so open minded toward drug users, i think that drug addiction is more of a health issue than a criminal problem, only reason i have any thing at all on my police record is for possession. and what the police don't realize is that its easier to get meth or heroine in jail than it is on the street ( usually ) . so all that really happens by putting drug addicts in jail is that you give them a free place to live for a few years so they can learn how to be better criminals from there fellow inmates and then release them back into society without ever actually recognizing the fact that they have a problem or trying to help them with it. then they wonder why there are so many repeat offenders, ---- whats the first thing you think a crackhead is going to do when he gets out of jail?
12-06-2005, 09:40 PM
#4
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 477
Re: Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
This has been around for awhile, it’s not just a 'shop' on some street corner, they are portables around the bad ends of the city. Crime has gone down a SUGNIFICANT amount, there are less bodies being found in the alleys, and less reports of A.I.D.S being ------. It may seem like a silly thing to some but if its keeping people alive, crime away, providing jobs (to the nurses) and also getting more addicts into rehab, I am all for it.
They can’t just go in, shoot up, and leave. They go in, are given brand new syringes/tubes/wash cloth, do their thing while accompanied by a nurse who after will talk to them for awhile about their problems, it’s not like the government are providing the H...
People use to have the same opinion on medicinal pot, until they opened their eyes and saw that it was actually curing health problems.
They can’t just go in, shoot up, and leave. They go in, are given brand new syringes/tubes/wash cloth, do their thing while accompanied by a nurse who after will talk to them for awhile about their problems, it’s not like the government are providing the H...
People use to have the same opinion on medicinal pot, until they opened their eyes and saw that it was actually curing health problems.
12-06-2005, 09:46 PM
#5
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 0
Re: Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
Did you just try to say Pot and heroin are the same thing
People don't murder/commit crimes because they can't find a hit of weed. lol.
That's it, if the government doesn't give me money, I'm gonna start hackin foo's up. No really, give me money and save these lives. :P
People don't murder/commit crimes because they can't find a hit of weed. lol.
That's it, if the government doesn't give me money, I'm gonna start hackin foo's up. No really, give me money and save these lives. :P
12-06-2005, 09:54 PM
#6
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,935
Re: Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
heroin isnt that bad of a drug, its just an opiate. in some places of eurpoe you can get presciption heroin if you can convince a doctor you'll never quit and you'll be an addict for the rest of your life, this way you'll get it legally and easily and wont becoming a theiving leach on society
12-06-2005, 10:28 PM
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Re: Canada: "Where the doctors help you shoot heroin"
Originally Posted by J-SiN
man my view of drugs is weird
I can hang around pot smokers all day btu when it comes to snorting powder Im out
I hate cokeheads
I can hang around pot smokers all day btu when it comes to snorting powder Im out
I hate cokeheads
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