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

fox59.com

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

#41

Post by Jdam »

tobltobs wrote: post #37
Jdam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because Bavaria is close to the Czech republic and the bavarian/czech border is a well known import corridor. Google further info on that, if you’re interested. Also, I invite you to compare the NRW numbers to the Berlin ones.

The drug importers don't sell their stuff along their import corridors. They bring it to next distribution center before they start splitting it up. according your logic Texas would be one of the states with a high drug overdose mortality. You are confusing small scale crystal meth smuggling with large scale opiate importing.

It just seems like „my“ (the local) logic simply does not apply to Texas. Generalization oftentimes doesn’t work ;) For the bavarian part, there are certainly „Meth Cities“ right at the border.

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

#42

Post by smsm42 »

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…

> If it prevents me from stepping on needles and seeing blood from people shooting up on the street, I am all for it.

For that, all the addicts need to be aware that this center exists, be able to get there (while suffering from withdrawal and other maladies accompanying their addiction) and be motivated to get there as opposed to getting the high right here right now (opioid addicts aren't exactly known for their capacity in delaying immediate gratification). With proper information and enforcement it may happen, but given how the streets of SF look now, this also may not happen.

They mention Vancouver as an example. I've been in Vancouver a few years ago, and I must say, if we're talking about people living on the street and doing drugs there, SF has nothing on Vancouver. The site around where Insite is (according to it's Wikipedia article) was occupied by something that looks like a refugee camp in a disaster area, only with a lot of drugs. Maybe not Insite's fault, maybe they are placed there exactly because that's where people who need it are, but certainly it didn't fix it.

I mean, maybe this saves these people's lives and is worth it. Vancouver locals certainly think it's worth it. But if you expect not seeing people doing drugs or stepping on needless and other unappetizing stuff - nah, didn't happen.

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

#43

Post by mschuster91 »

Jdam wrote: post #31
zenbit wrote: post #28

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.

That’s because Bavaria is close to the Czech republic and the bavarian/czech border is a well known import corridor. Google further info on that, if you’re interested. Also, I invite you to compare the NRW numbers to the Berlin ones.

> That’s because Bavaria is close to the Czech republic and the bavarian/czech border is a well known import corridor.

Most stuff coming over from CZ is meth and illegal tobacco and fireworks.

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

#44

Post by askvictor »

sfstreet wrote: post #26

"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?

That would be ideal, but probably not possible politically (at the moment, anyway). But this is a step in the right direction, and will hopefully lead to this in time.

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

#45

Post by Jdam »

zenbit wrote: post #35
Jdam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because Bavaria is close to the Czech republic and the bavarian/czech border is a well known import corridor. Google further info on that, if you’re interested. Also, I invite you to compare the NRW numbers to the Berlin ones.

NRW borders the Netherlands, a country with easy drug access as well. And yes, deaths per capita are much higher in Germany's city-states (Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen). But please go ahead and compare numbers on a per-city basis (2016 numbers). You will note that Munich (62 deaths, 1.4m inhabitants, ~44 deaths per capita) is very much comparable to Berlin (167 deaths, 3.5m inhabitants, ~48 deaths per capita).

Sure, gaining access to drugs in the Netherlands is easy, but usually people go there to get some of the not-so-deadly drugs, like weed and not heroin or meth, like bavaria.

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

#46

Post by smsm42 »

The article starts with "to open what could become the nation’s first legal safe injection sites aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic". How that should work? I understand that it may help existing drug addicts and reduce mortality from opioid abuse (which by itself is a good thing) but how can it curb the opioid epidemic? I may be that it achieves many other benefits, but what would be the way it may achieve this one? By logic if opioid use becomes easier and less dangerous (which, again, may be a very good thing for current addicts) it would not make people less willing to take opioids, so how that is supposed to work? Is there some component of it that I am missing?

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

#47

Post by smsm42 »

sfstreet wrote: post #26

"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?

Because then the organizers of the site would be in jail for drug trafficking, and so would be any doctor who prescribed those. That could happen only if drugs are legalized, and not only on the state but on federal level. You can judge how far we are from there if you notice that DOJ, under Sessions, is still battling the benign marijuana, even for medical use (which makes me seeing red and my blood pressure skyrockets each time I think about it - ffs, we use chemicals in medicine that can are like a nuclear weapon compared to marijuana's zippo lighter, and still these people refuse to see the case for even prescribed medical use!). And you're talking about legally dealing out the real bad stuff, which is dangerous. We are decades from that, at the very best.

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

#48

Post by aaronbrethorst »

icelancer wrote: post #24
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.

A group of Seattle NIMBYs are fighting back against it pretty hard. For the sake of my city, I hope they lose.

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

#49

Post by birken »

smsm42 wrote: post #46

The article starts with "to open what could become the nation’s first legal safe injection sites aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic". How that should work? I understand that it may help existing drug addicts and reduce mortality from opioid abuse (which by itself is a good thing) but how can it curb the opioid epidemic? I may be that it achieves many other benefits, but what would be the way it may achieve this one…

> have consistently shown them to be effective at reducing overdose deaths, preventing transmission of HIV and viral hepatitis, reducing street-based drug use and linking people to drug treatment and other services

There are a lot of people addicted to drugs that don't want to be. In a safe injection site, you have a bunch of health professionals around who are experts at treating addiction.

I'm not an expert on opioid addiction but I'd wager that the ease or difficulty of injecting the drugs isn't a major factor for opioid usage. I think the people who are addicted will get and take the drugs by any means necessary, and people who aren't addicted to opioid's probably aren't going to try them all the sudden because there is a safe injection site.

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

#50

Post by bfuller »

tcj_phx wrote: post #13

In days gone by, heroin addicts knew how much heroin they needed to 'stay well'. A major factor in the escalation of deaths in the modern era is the contamination of the street pharmacy's heroin supply with more potent synthetic opioids (fentanyl, etc). Overdoses happen when street drugs are more potent than the user expects, or when the user's tolerance has changed. Two factors in my girlfriend's OD were having been…

Not really entirely true. I was an IV drug user before the fentanyl analogs started being pumped out of China and "hot shots" were always a thing.
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