Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#21

Post by sergers » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:03 AM UTC

s0rce wrote: post #10

ggg9990 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with no stake in this, I would rather have all of that decay in one place I can avoid rather than strewn about my city.

But realistically that does nothing to solve the problem. We could just designate SF the safe injection site for the USA and the problem would be out of view for the rest of the population.

I don't think safe injection sites solve that problem, it's about making a safe environment for junkies to safely take drugs in hopes they don't do it elsewhere littering needles and drug paraphernalia in other public spaces, especially around children.

Now for the junkies, needs to be more than a safe haven to shoot up and definitely agree with your sentiments. I know they offer more than that, but some people just want that and that's the problem

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#22

Post by danmaz74 » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:09 AM UTC

Cofike wrote: post #9

The individuals who are using these drugs already use them openly in the street. I see them daily on my way to work as I work in a popular area for vagrants/homeless. If it prevents me from stepping on needles and seeing blood from people shooting up on the street, I am all for it. These individuals will use one way or another if they want to so giving them a place to do it safely off the street seems acceptable. Of…

> Of course, the ideal solution will be to eliminate heroin and other hard drug use but this is a start.

That's practically impossible. A much more realistic goal is to minimize hard drugs use, and to minimize the negative impact of that use which will stay on both the users and everybody else.

The problem of thinking about the "ideal solution", in this case, is that trying to reach it brings us to adopt policies that do the opposite of minimizing the negative impact of use, especially if you consider enriching and encouraging violent gangs and mobsters, corruptions, and ruined lives a negative impact.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#23

Post by 220V_USKettle » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:26 AM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #8

AnabeeKnox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a hard sell to use Vancouver as a model. It has an area which is perhaps the most public display of social decay I've ever encounted in a first-world city, principally from drug abuse.

As someone with no stake in this, I would rather have all of that decay in one place I can avoid rather than strewn about my city.

It didn't work for 'Bunny'.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#24

Post by icelancer » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:32 AM UTC

eddieh wrote: post #12

I thought the first of these sites in the US were going to be in Seattle? Seems like San Francisco is closer now. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-king...

The citizens of Seattle are fighting back against it pretty hard.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#25

Post by Animats » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

api_or_ipa wrote: post #19

formol wrote: post #3

The very lefty mayor of Paris launched one « safe site » in the city. Results : disneyland for drug dealers and addicts in the area, dead people (OD) in the street, noise, fights...

I don't know much about the site in Paris but I do have experience living nearby Vancouver's first of now two safe injection sites. In my experience what you describe did not happen in Vancouver. Safe injection sights save lives by providing a clean, safe place to minimize harm.

That's Vancouver. Even the druggies are reasonably civilized.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#26

Post by sfstreet » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:46 AM UTC

"The facilities provide a safe space where people can consume previously obtained drugs"

That seems strange. If you actually tolerate drug use why not go the full way and provide clean versions of the drug on prescription, driving illegal dealers out of business?

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#27

Post by fatbird » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

AnabeeKnox wrote: post #6

Phanyxx wrote: post #5

Here in Vancouver the safe injection sites have saved countless lives and drastically lowered needle sharing. There's a big misconception that safe injection sites somehow promote drug use. They save lives and give people a legitimate pathway to get clean if they choose to. Do the right thing, SF!

It might be a hard sell to use Vancouver as a model. It has an area which is perhaps the most public display of social decay I've ever encounted in a first-world city, principally from drug abuse.

You didn't see the Downtown Eastside before the safe injection site was opened. Needles filled the gutters. The alleys were where you went to get robbed.

There's a reason the Vancouver City Police support the safe injection site. Crime is down; incidence of AIDs transmission, Hepatitis transmission, STI transmission, down across the board.

I walk through the DTES every day between my home and work. It's ugly. It smells like urine. I walk past people shooting heroin several times a week. It's a hundred times better than it was 20 years ago. It's ugly from our perspective. It's vastly improved from the reality of junkie neighbourhoods when we refused to acknowledge how such communities work and how to help the people in them.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#28

Post by zenbit » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:52 AM UTC

In 2016 there were 204 deaths due to substance abuse in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), with ~17m inhabitants Germany's most populous state. That same year there were 321 deaths in Bavaria. Bavaria has a population of only ~12m and in general has a much lower crime rate than NRW. The difference in deaths is often attributed to the fact that there are safe injection sites in NRW while there are none in Bavaria.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#29

Post by fatbird » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:52 AM UTC

s0rce wrote: post #10

ggg9990 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with no stake in this, I would rather have all of that decay in one place I can avoid rather than strewn about my city.

But realistically that does nothing to solve the problem. We could just designate SF the safe injection site for the USA and the problem would be out of view for the rest of the population.

When it's concentrated in one neighbourhood, you can concentrate social services in that neighbourhood. The DTES has a bank dedicated to avoiding paying a percentage of welfare checks to check cashing businesses. Insite has a rehab facility attached to it with a higher rate of non-recidivism after one year than any other in North America. Safe injections sites work. The Vancouver City Police are one of the biggest supporters of the Vancouver safe injection site, which should tell you something.

Re: Safe injection sites in San Francisco could be first in the US

#30

Post by blackbagboys » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:54 AM UTC

sergers wrote: post #21

s0rce wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But realistically that does nothing to solve the problem. We could just designate SF the safe injection site for the USA and the problem would be out of view for the rest of the population.

I don't think safe injection sites solve that problem, it's about making a safe environment for junkies to safely take drugs in hopes they don't do it elsewhere littering needles and drug paraphernalia in other public spaces, especially around children. Now for the junkies, needs to be more than a safe haven to shoot up and definitely agree with your sentiments. I know they offer more than that, but some people just…

The hope is that the "junkies" don't die. If that is all that's accomplished, that's still a success. There doesn't need to be more. Obviously there should be an option for users to enter treatment or receive some sort of assistance, but addicts should definitely not be forced into anything just to satisfy some petit bourgeois stern moral impulse, because that will ultimately drive people away and cost lives.