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

[southcitymom]

.....It just irks me that so many crimes are committed against innocent people just to obtain the drug in the first place.....

Me too....wonder if that would be different if the substance they wanted to obtain wasn't illegal. I know this isn't a drug legalization thread, but I couldn't stop myself from pointing out that we allow the most societally dangerous drugs to be controlled by thugs on the streets with guns...why don't we Just Say No to that reality!?

 

[j2mirish]

I do agree with the needle swap program; however, I draw the line on a medical person standing by to make sure they don't overdose. We've got law abiding citizens who need medical assistance that cannot get it. Why should we provide it for people breaking the law? Our military veterans, children, elderly. Those are the people whom these medical providers should be concentrating.

thank you--- I was just going to post the same thing--- needle swap ok- free assisted medically supervised shooting up clinics......I think not--
if every american citizen could go to the doctor and get a presciption or surgery when needed with no question or checkbook- then we can talk about something this ridiculous-

 

[dingo]

Me too....wonder if that would be different if the substance they wanted to obtain wasn't illegal. I know this isn't a drug legalization thread, but I couldn't stop myself from pointing out that we allow the most societally dangerous drugs to be controlled by thugs on the streets with guns...why don't we Just Say No to that reality!?

Im starting to think that the goverment would be better off using impounded drugs to supply to the injecting rooms....that leaves less innocent victims and cuts out the middle man.

 

[Marthatex]

This injecting room is going into its 5th year with another 4 years of trials in front of it....it would be interesting to know how many addicts have been helped to come clean since the onset of this room..if it was proven then even a small percentage were rehabilitated and leading normal lives then I might take a different view.
It just irks me that so many crimes are committed against innocent people just to obtain the drug in the first place and once the druggie is in the room doing their thing he/she is considered untouchable.....the drug dealers who do their business in the area of the rooms must be making a killing with a steady flow of cashed up customers........seems we are stuck with it so we can only hope that it is helping more than it is hindering.

It does seem that ice would be a problem if they go back out on the street and commit violence against others.

It's a tough question - I guess the "powers that be" or researchers will have to crunch the numbers and figure out whether it's more cost-effective and helpful to have the room and slow down Aids, or put more police in there for arrests or to stop the drug flow.

 

[dingo]

We are very short on police here now so maybe some of the money used on the rooms could go towards getting more cops on the beat to bust the dealers.

 

[i.b.nora]

Me too....wonder if that would be different if the substance they wanted to obtain wasn't illegal. I know this isn't a drug legalization thread, but I couldn't stop myself from pointing out that we allow the most societally dangerous drugs to be controlled by thugs on the streets with guns...why don't we Just Say No to that reality!?

Prompted by your post, I thought I would go back and find a couple of articles I have read recently.

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom: War On Drugs Is A Failure

This was published October 4, 2007, before the symposium. I think its worth it to watch the video that accompanies the story.

A day or two before the symposium, C.W. Nevius wrote this column in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Support for supervised drug injection is growing

Part of the article:

"Two months ago I wrote about an idea for a place in San Francisco where intravenous drug users could shoot up under the supervision of trained personnel. A lot of people thought it sounded crazy.

Well, get ready to hear about it again, because the idea is gaining momentum.

On Thursday, an all-day symposium - co-hosted by the city Department of Public Health - will examine the idea of creating safe injection centers where users could bring their drugs, shoot up and leave, without fear of arrest.

The idea is to decrease overdoses, keep dirty needles off the street, and cut the risk of spreading HIV and hepatitis C. Those are all good things. It is the idea of providing addicts with their own injection clinic that riles people up.

"What's next?" a reader wrote when the first column appeared. "Giving them the drugs, too?"

No. But there's no doubt that if San Francisco ever established such a center, even as a pilot program, there would be an enormous brouhaha.

"It would be huge international news," said Peter Davidson, a researcher at UCSF in the epidemiology and biostatistics department. "It would be the first facility in the United States, and there would probably be a firestorm for a while."

You can count on that. The conservative radio talk show hosts are probably already jump-starting their tonsils. Wacky San Francisco, providing a party room for junkies.

Nor are public officials eager to jump on the bandwagon. Asked for a comment from Mayor Gavin Newsom, spokesman Nathan Ballard said, "The mayor is not inclined to support this approach, which quite frankly may end up creating more problems than it addresses."

Organizers of Thursday's conference are hardly surprised by that reaction."

There is more, read the whole thing.

Personally, I think it sounds like a great idea and is worth trying.

 

[southcitymom]

Im starting to think that the goverment would be better off using impounded drugs to supply to the injecting rooms....that leaves less innocent victims and cuts out the middle man.

If the government were going to give drugs to people who requested them, they would soon run out of their impounded supply. Frankly, it would make more sense for the government to regulate, sell and tax illegal drugs - not give them away. That's the real way to cut out the men on the streets with guns.

But at this stage in the game, the governement is more interested in being the "moral" police (ie "this drug is okay but this drug will send you to jail...") than taking a real look at solutions to the drug problem. It's much easier to spew rhetorical "Just Say Nos" than to actually do anything.

 

[dingo]

I dont know what solution is actually going to work South..maybe yours would if given the chance.

 

[southcitymom]

I dont know what solution is actually going to work South..maybe yours would if given the chance.

I'm not wise enough to know either - none of us are! But I am smart enough to know what we are doing is NOT working and to be open minded to suggestions that, at first glance, may seem insane!!

 

[dingo]

I know smack is bad but Ive seen docomentries on this new Ice/meth craze and it scares the life out of me....the violence shown by the uses is unbelievable ,not to mention what it does to your body...Ive also been to the faces of meth site and am astounded by what this drug can do to you in such a short period..imo herion is bad but ice is just plain evil.

 

[Details]

Yeah, I'm no supporter of legalization. Maybe marijuana (I'd trade - make tobacco illegal - kills more people anyway), but nothing harder. But drugs do too much damage to people for them to be legal.


However, addicts exist, and until we can stop drugs from arriving, they'll continue to exist. I think we need to do all we can to stop drugs, lock up druggies when they commit any crime or are caught with their drug - but after that - we've also got to recognize that they're here, so what can we do to minimize that impact while we work to eliminate their lifestyle.

 

[dingo]

Thats the problem with the injecting rooms Details...once the druggie is in the room with their poison they are untouchable..its a safe haven where you can do your illegal drugs with no fear of being arrested..at least if they,re caught on the streets they can be arrested and made to feel uncomfortable about their habit......I wonder how many have been caught miles away with drugs but made the excuse that they were on their way to the injecting room to use it when in fact they wernt..I dont know how the police would be able to make an arrest if that were the case.

 

[southcitymom]

Yeah, I'm no supporter of legalization. Maybe marijuana (I'd trade - make tobacco illegal - kills more people anyway), but nothing harder. But drugs do too much damage to people for them to be legal.


However, addicts exist, and until we can stop drugs from arriving, they'll continue to exist. I think we need to do all we can to stop drugs, lock up druggies when they commit any crime or are caught with their drug - but after that - we've also got to recognize that they're here, so what can we do to minimize that impact while we work to eliminate their lifestyle.

Good points, Details. Drugs do a lot of damage to people. My question is - do drugs do more ancillary damage to innocent people (non-users) because they are illegal? My answer - maybe!!

I do not think we will ever eliminate the "lifestyle" of addiction. Humans try to escape being human - that's age-old behavior and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Some escapes are relatively harmless to others (reading, watching movies, getting a massage, etc...) and some escapes are relatively dangerous to others (abusing alcohol or ice).

ETA: any one with the slightest knowledge of marijuana and alcohol knows it's ridiculous that marijuana is a criminalized substance. That fact alone shows how upside down and inside out our 'drug" policies are.

 

[southcitymom]

Thats the problem with the injecting rooms Details...once the druggie is in the room with their poison they are untouchable..its a safe haven where you can do your illegal drugs with no fear of being arrested..at least if they,re caught on the streets they can be arrested and made to feel uncomfortable about their habit......I wonder how many have been caught miles away with drugs but made the excuse that they were on their way to the injecting room to use it when in fact they wernt..I dont know how the police would be able to make an arrest if that were the case.

I wonder about this too, dingo - how do you make a legal shooting gallery in the face of the fact that all these substances are, for the most part, illegal to possess and use? But, other countries with drug laws similar to the US drugs laws (Canada comes to mine) have these legalized shooting galleries - there must be some way to make them work.

And yes, if I was an addict caught with an illegal substance I would say "Hey - I'm on my way to the shooting range - you need to give me the amnesty I would have there!!"

 

[southcitymom]

I know smack is bad but Ive seen docomentries on this new Ice/meth craze and it scares the life out of me....the violence shown by the uses is unbelievable ,not to mention what it does to your body...Ive also been to the faces of meth site and am astounded by what this drug can do to you in such a short period..imo herion is bad but ice is just plain evil.

Junk is bad because it is so easy to OD on it and because people engage in crime to support their habit. But I agree that ICE has that PCP-like quality and leads to much more human-against-human violence.

Most junkies just want to chill out - they aren't going anywhere to mess with anyone. ICE users are just the opposite.

 

[dingo]

I wonder about this too, dingo - how do you make a legal shooting gallery in the face of the fact that all these substances are, for the most part, illegal to possess and use? But, other countries with drug laws similar to the US drugs laws (Canada comes to mine) have these legalized shooting galleries - there must be some way to make them work.

And yes, if I was an addict caught with an illegal substance I would say "Hey - I'm on my way to the shooting range - you need to give me the amnesty I would have there!!"

Id be saying the same thing South and I dont know how you could be arrested just because of the distance factor.....the more we discuss this the bigger the can of worms becomes.
The chill factor certainly doesnt apply to the Ice user...I seen one poor doctors face after he got the crap belted out of him by an Ice patient who he was trying to help...now extra money has to be spent on security guards to protect the doctors who work in the emergency rooms.

 

[poco]

I have a hard time visualizing a hard core heroin (or other) addict, spending all his time and effort running around during the day to try to scrounge up enough money for another "bag" or two or three or four, probably by now being in the throws of withdrawal and taking his last $1 or whatever to hop on a bus to go to one of these SAFE clinics.

That guy is gonna shoot up in the first place he can find - which is just around the corner!

IMO, the hard core drug users don't think twice about overdosing.

 

[southcitymom]

I have a hard time visualizing a hard core heroin (or other) addict, spending all his time and effort running around during the day to try to scrounge up enough money for another "bag" or two or three or four, probably by now being in the throws of withdrawal and taking his last $1 or whatever to hop on a bus to go to one of these SAFE clinics.

That guy is gonna shoot up in the first place he can find - which is just around the corner!

IMO, the hard core drug users don't think twice about overdosing.

There is truth to that, poco (off subject - I am so sorry to hear about your Mom and you are in my thoughts and prayers :blowkiss: ). I see a roaring trade of dealers sprouting up around these clinics, no?

 

[dingo]

I have a hard time visualizing a hard core heroin (or other) addict, spending all his time and effort running around during the day to try to scrounge up enough money for another "bag" or two or three or four, probably by now being in the throws of withdrawal and taking his last $1 or whatever to hop on a bus to go to one of these SAFE clinics.

That guy is gonna shoot up in the first place he can find - which is just around the corner!

IMO, the hard core drug users don't think twice about overdosing.

I agree with you Poco but if caught in possession they only need to say they are headed to the safe haven and they would be allowed to walk scott free with their illegal drugs..at least this is how it seems to me.

 

[Details]

Good points, Details. Drugs do a lot of damage to people. My question is - do drugs do more ancillary damage to innocent people (non-users) because they are illegal? My answer - maybe!!,,,.

I'd say unquestionably. Make the drugs legal, and the cocaine user who is still holding a job will no longer be subsidizing the violent drug dealler for his stash, and prices will drop so less thieving is required to support a habit. No question about it to me...


But....


Then we have the people, I think a huge number, who never try drugs because they are illegal. You try alcohol, but not drugs. If it was legal, it'd be easier to get, and I think it'd be an enourmous quantity of additional people trying it - and once you try it, you're hooked, become a user, and become useless.