How do you feel about dedicated locations for addicts?

[Potteplante]

I'm glad we have one in my town. Met an old acquaintance yesterday and went to the "ramp" and even though it doesn't remove the issue - (drug problems) then it does remove it from the town image, it gives addicts a safe place - where there are volunteers along with access to cheap food and beverages.

[razelove]

I think it could work in other countries, but the ravenous demand for drugs is simply insatiable in the US. Drug addiction spreads like a meme here, and the idea of quitting for most people is simply to get addicted to a different drug.

Forget about energy, the US makes up 4.4% of the world population and consumes 80% of the opiates.

www.health.state.mn.us/.../painperception.html

The only solution that I could see working here would be permanently binding analogues. I've seen research and some mouse studies years ago on cocaine until the DEA bought it up and vanished it. Basically you do the drug once, get really high, and then the drug can never affect your brain ever again. Like you could still OD on it, but there are no seizures, as technically it's still in your brain, but doing it won't do anything as the binding sites are occupied with a stronger binding drug than the drug itself.

Just lie and spike the drug supply the same way as fentanyl. It would fuck up pain management down the line, but fix the immediate problems, and be better money spent than dumping it into the military industrial complex or developing more covid boosters that don't work right now.

Ahh, found one of the cocaine analogues, it only lasts a couple days and needs to be taken like an antidepressant though, which is the only behavioral change it exhibits, besides, you know, coke not getting the patient high anymore, or withdrawal, also the analogues structure allows cocaine local anesthetics to still work.

[exitseven]

There should be shame involved in being a drug addict. If you legitimize it by giving out free needles and provide safe injection sites you just normalize this behavior. In the end you have more kids using this poison and you end up with more junkies, more crime and more ODs. Where I live there is a section of town that the junkies are allowed to pitch tents on the sidewalk, panhandle and shoot up in public. As a result there are drug dealers selling drugs in broad daylight, people passed out on the sidewalk and local businesses are complaining that they chase their customers away. There are many crimes that the local democrat DAs do not enforce and it just results in more crime.

[Potteplante]

There is shame with addiction, - it is heavily stigmatized. Dedicated areas for them, doesn't remove that - it just makes it safer for EVERYONE around. Instead of them being around town - drinking, smoking and injecting themselves, they're doing so away from everyone.

That there IS a dedicated area for addicts here means there isn't sections of my town filled with addicts & crime. We don't have people passed out on the streets (except in summer time - when the homeless arrive).

In the bigger cities, places that used have sections as you describe - have created safe spots, which has removed it from the streets. Meaning - less drug sale in the daylight for everyone to see, children aren't as much confronted with it & local businesses have little to complain about.

[exitseven]

I grew up in the 80s and there were lots of drugs around. I only knew one kid that used heroin. He was a really bad kid and nobody liked him. Everyone stayed away from this kid. Now fast forward 30 years and we have special high schools for drug addicts with dozens of kids in the program. Nobody looks down on these kids. Everyone "celebrates" them. If junkies were marginalized kids would steer clear of illegal drugs.

[Potteplante]

There's always lots of drugs around & plenty of people are unaware of how easily they're obtained. Working with addicts & alcoholics (and being one myself growing up) - I know that the shame is just one more factor to keep the addiction going. I've never had anyone celebrate drugs around me, I grew up seeing what addiction did and being warned against them, I still became an addict and I promise you - I was looked down on by many and invisible to even more.

If you fast forward from the 80s - now, then there have been a lot more changes. Everything goes faster, heck everything is going faster than when I was growing up - people get left behind.

[exitseven]

@Potteplante I saw people that got left behind and they stayed that way.

[Potteplante]

@exitseven I see them often - so do you, you say there's a whole section of your town filled with indivuals who've been left behind.

I sat with a group of them - the day I posted the question, I volunteer to work for indivuals who've been left behind and get shamed for it.

[exitseven]

@Potteplante thanks for clarifying that. I wondered if you went there to score.

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[OddBeMe]

Yes we should have that with homeless, addicts, etc with treatment. Free. And confidential, as in can’t be used in court.

[Alex8736]

In Boston there is a designated area called methadone mile

[katiesmuff]

I wish they would do that here in the US!

[chicken_nugget24]

I like the idea of safe places

[In_Trance]

whatever works I guess