San Francisco Considers Nation's First Safe Injection Site for Addicts

[philamena]

....

well then, it's very simple..... DON'T START!!!
What the hell does a person expect is going to happen if they shoot up heroin or try meth in the first place??

:clap:

 

[reb]

shamrock,, sorry about your sister.. that's got to be rough for you and your family. i can't even imagine having a sibling who was an addict. well,, OK i can imagine it. but it would be maddening. it's a very selfish problem people get themselves into and they suck their friends and loved ones into their problems. so sad,, when you think of all the sick, injured, or terminally ill people out there.. or people who've been through a war.. who would give anything to have a healthy, normal life.. and then you have perfectly healthy addicts, who are willingly RUINING their health, their minds, and their lives,, by their own hand.... it just boggles the mind. they have the gift of life, and they are just throwing it all away.
i wish you luck in coping, and all the support you can get. hopefully someday she can get it together. of course a person have to really want it bad enough, even more than they crave the drug.

 

[Share-in]

That's San Francisco for you...always thinking outside of the box. Just another of many "stupid" ideas! Does the law = "NO DRUGS" even apply in San Francisco? Oh, yea, they make up their own laws! :furious:

 

[reb]

that's why,, hey-if you're an addict,, just move to san fransisco!! can you imagine living there,, with all that,, on top of the homeless problem they already have?? geez.. it's bad enough in other cities.

 

[ziggy]

I love San Francisco with all my heart, but I had to move away and to the outer areas because most of the people there have lost their damn minds.

The jury is still out on Vancouver's success with their injection site. I saw a gentleman on the news with stats that do not support this idea. Sorry, don't remember his name and can't back that up but you must know, with common sense this idea does not cut it.

It will not reduce the drug related crime rates unless the city is also buying and supplying the drugs for these addicts.

This is enabling. I would hope that tax payer dollars would not be used in this manner.

San Francisco is a socialist society. It's not thinking outside the box, it's revisiting a bad idea we fought to destroy in America. You will watch them fall. It's bound to happen and it's sad. The same people who rally in the streets to protest the alledged "torture" of our enemies (who would slit their throats in a heartbeat) are the same that condone men putting meat hooks in their backs and "hangin around" in assless chaps with dildos up their butts for a "street fair".

The city is now funding teachers with money to buy homes ($20,000 downpayment) because the city is losing teachers to the outer areas because they can't afford to live there. The city is taking the taxpayers money and redistributing the wealth istead of fixing the economic problems. It's just insane. God help them. But wait, they hate God, so nevermind.

 

[southcitymom]

Nice idea but I have a better one--Bring them all in at once and then tell them WE WERE JUST KIDDING--Then take all of them and lock them all up in separate cells and let them go thru their own cold turkey, convulsing and throwing up until they are clean of any and all drugs--lol--anyway,lets face facts: Drug Addicts who "shoot up" are the lowest form of scum around---They are all lowlifes and they help spread the deadly disease AIDS, and AIDS killed 16,000 people last year and over 500,000 people have died horrible deaths from it in the last 25 years in the US alone--no sympathy for needle drug addicts, people who don't care about themselves or anybody else and are a danger to society

Interesting opinion for me to read as most of the former needle drug addicts I know are/were doctors and nurses.

 

[southcitymom]

Is it wrong for me to say,, "YES.. please help them kill themselves faster...?"

I guess I am the last person on earth to see drug addiction as a CONSCIOUS CHOICE.. and not a 'disease' that people are helpless unwitting victims of. The only time I feel sympathy is when person has a chronic pain or injury that they can no longer bear and start taking pain pills for, and become addicted.. or, if their parents were drug addicts and it is inherited. Otherwise.... you're dumb enough to play with fire,, that's your problem, NOT mine. Sorry,,, but the dangers of drugs are very well known,, unless you grew up in a closet.

Good points, reb. Possibly only a drug addict can understand what it's like to use against your will.

ETA: I heard someone tell this descriptive story, which I found interesting. He's a former needle addict with 30+ years clean and he works in a treatment center:

If you kidnapped an Earth person and someone with the disease of addiction (two people who had never used drugs)and locked them each in a room and shot them up with heroin every day for 30 days, both people would become physically addicted to heroin because that's the type of drug heroin is.

Then if you removed the heroin, each of these people would go through the pain of withdrawal - and I can't even find the words to describe what that pain is like, but suffice it to say, it's terrible.

After withdrawing from the heroin and getting back to normal, the Earth person would say "Oh my God - that was the worst experience of my life. I don't ever want to go through that again. I will never ever touch heroin again for as long as I live" and then go on to do just that.

After withdrawing from the heroin and getting back to normal, the addict would say, "Hmmm....I wonder where I could get some more of that...." and go on to do just that.

 

[Buzz Mills]

Good points, reb. Possibly only a drug addict can understand what it's like to use against your will.

We see constant examples of addicts, who choose drugs, over the welfare of their children, so that should tell us something about how strong addictions are.

As for me, and my addiction, quitting smoking was easy. I should know, I quit many, many, times, before I finally succeeded. That was after quitting for a year, smoking for three months, quitting for six months, smoking for three months, quitting for nine months, and smoking for three months; this went on for 15 years, until I finally quit for good. It was a piece of cake....lol

 

[Love_Mama]

I think the idea is to keep addicts alive long enough that they can be helped.

I agree with you Nova and I hope they can pull it off.

xxxxxxooooo
mama
:blowkiss: :blowkiss:

 

[southcitymom]

We see constant examples of addicts, who choose drugs, over the welfare of their children, so that should tell us something about how strong addictions are.

As for me, and my addiction, quitting smoking was easy. I should know, I quit many, many, times, before I finally succeeded. That was after quitting for a year, smoking for three months, quitting for six months, smoking for three months, quitting for nine months, and smoking for three months; this went on for 15 years, until I finally quit for good. It was a piece of cake....lol

LOL Buzz, that is the path for most addicts of any substance - it usually takes more than one attempt to finally give it up for good....I know it did for me!

 

[Marthatex]

Yes, MTx, I agree... it's not just lowlifes.. and I certainly agree that many young people have very little guidance. However.. basic common sense tells us that drugs are bad and addictive. Everyone knows this. Let's face it.. the #1 reason people experiment with drugs, and smoking too (knowing full well of the dangers) is because they want to be rebellious, cool, a bad-*advertiser censored*,, peer pressure,, because everyone's doing it. Sorry,, if they end up addicts.. then obviously,, I hope they get it together and help themselves... but this whole attitude that so many addicts have of 'dammit, why isn't anyone helping me??' is annoying.. you got there yourself sweetheart. You're not a helpless victim of some random disease.

Well, then you must not be sympathetic towards alcholics either; and they run through all levels of society; men, women, housewives, CEO's - and they do get help, through treatment centers, AA; some beat it, others do not. Usually it takes SUPPORT, you can't beat it alone.

I assume this treatment is going to "gradually take them off" the heroin - you can't go off it cold turkey on your own.

It might cost San Francisco alot more to clean people off the streets, bury them in paupers graves, find shelters for them and pay police to arrest them, put them in jail, etc.

This "treatment program", might help stop the spread of aids and actually be less expensive than the alternatives. Just sayin.......

I don't think it's "socialist" - are soup kitchins and shelters socialist; neither is helping teachers afford housing, so they can get good teachers in the inner-city. I would prefer to call it PROGRESSIVE.

I don't know the status of San Francisco's budget but I do know that ignoring problems or fighting them in a "nonproductive" way can cost more in the long run.

 

[Marthatex]

I agree with you Nova and I hope they can pull it off.

xxxxxxooooo
mama
:blowkiss: :blowkiss:

I agree too.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

Perhaps we need to look at it from another perspective.

We have rows and rows of bars in our cities, especially our college towns. We also have alcoholics frequenting the bars daily. Let's say your 17yo child was one of the alcoholics living on campus and one of those going to the bar daily. (Yes, it would make it illegal to serve your child, but we know they still access it.) If there was a bar set up with medical intervention onsite to address the problem of people dying from alcohol poisoning, aspirating on their own vomit, or other known side effects which cause death by alcohol...would you support your child going to such a bar? Would you rather your child lie in a dorm room or on a street corner and run the risk of dying because of his/her addiction?

I have to go with Marthatex on this one. I agree it is progressive and though very controversial...it is addressing the problem where the problem lies.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Perhaps we need to look at it from another perspective.

We have rows and rows of bars in our cities, especially our college towns. We also have alcoholics frequenting the bars daily. Let's say your 17yo child was one of the alcoholics living on campus and one of those going to the bar daily. (Yes, it would make it illegal to serve your child, but we know they still access it.) If there was a bar set up with medical intervention onsite to address the problem of people dying from alcohol poisoning, aspirating on their own vomit, or other known side effects which cause death by alcohol...would you support your child going to such a bar? Would you rather your child lie in a dorm room or on a street corner and run the risk of dying because of his/her addiction?

I have to go with Marthatex on this one. I agree it is progressive and though very controversial...it is addressing the problem where the problem lies.

We're talking about legal drugs versus illegal drugs, so I don't see how they can possibly be compared. Moreover, its far easier to die from an overdose of something you are shooting into your veins than it is to die from alcohol poisoning.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

We're talking about legal drugs versus illegal drugs, so I don't see how they can possibly be compared. Moreover, its far easier to die from an overdose of something you are shooting into your veins than it is to die from alcohol poisoning.

If you read it again...I was speaking of a 17 year old who is drinking illegally. Illegal is illegal. Yes, the punishments getting caught are different...but it doesn't make either one more legal...does it?! Can a person be more dead than another?!

 

[Jeana (DP)]

If you read it again...I was speaking of a 17 year old who is drinking illegally. Illegal is illegal. Yes, the punishments getting caught are different...but it doesn't make either one more legal...does it?! Can a person be more dead than another?!

I was speaking of the legalities of the drug.

 

[southcitymom]

....I assume this treatment is going to "gradually take them off" the heroin - you can't go off it cold turkey on your own......

Marthatex,

I honestly don't think these types of centers that SF is discussing are designed to gradually take an addict off heroin or meth or whatever they are injecting. They are public health facilities where the addicts would bring there own drugs and shoot up under medical supervision in an effort to prevent accidental ODs, which are rampant in SF.

The clinic workers would not be responsible for adjusting or downsizing the addict's dose. I am sure these centers would provide public information to any addict wishing to get clean, but I doubt they would be involved past that. I am saying this based of what I have read about these centers in other countries. They are NOT treatment places or even pre-treatment places. That's not where the focus lies.

 

[southcitymom]

I was speaking of the legalities of the drug.

Yes, but some drugs are legal during certain situations (age or medical care) and illegal during others. Very few drugs are 100% illegal all the time. (certainly heroin is not, as it is prescribed medically for chronic pain sufferers).

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Yes, but some drugs are legal during certain situations (age or medical care) and illegal during others.

Absolutely right!

 

[Marthatex]

Marthatex,

I honestly don't think these types of centers that SF is discussing are designed to gradually take an addict off heroin or meth or whatever they are injecting. They are public health facilities where the addicts would bring there own drugs and shoot up under medical supervision in an effort to prevent accidental ODs, which are rampant in SF.

The clinic workers would not be responsible for adjusting or downsizing the addict's dose. I am sure these centers would provide public information to any addict wishing to get clean, but I doubt they would be involved past that. I am saying this based of what I have read about these centers in other countries. They are NOT treatment places or even pre-treatment places. That's not where the focus lies.

I thought the Vancouver article said it helps them get off the drug.