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Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

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Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#181

Post by chillacy »

jayajay wrote: post #81
paulmd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, do you have an alcohol problem or addictive personality that is driving this fear? If not, what keeps you from drinking yourself to sleep on the sidewalk every night? When it comes down to it, not all drugs are equal. Heroin isn't "alcohol but worse". People who drink tend to get pretty nasty sometimes, and that's a social harm that someone who's nodding doesn't perpetrate. And in terms of physical h…

If this were several years ago and I was still a college freshman, I bet I would have tried heroin if it was available for 5 bucks a pop next to the Benadryl at CVS. Things much more innocent than heroin get in the way of a freshman, so yeah, I would be concerned if heroin was on the shelf for anyone who is 18 right now.

I would've too, but I'm fairly confident it would have been a one-time-only thing. I had a roommate, smart lawyer kid, who talked casually about doing cocaine one day, which surprised me since back then I drew a line between "hard drugs" like cocaine, H, meth, and "soft drugs" like marijuana, LSD, and the like. And this guy seemed (and still is) like such a smart, successful person. He told me that drugs don't change who you are... if you're a cautious person who has self control, that doesn't change.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#182

Post by chillacy »

edblarney wrote: post #135
paulmd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, do you have an alcohol problem or addictive personality that is driving this fear? If not, what keeps you from drinking yourself to sleep on the sidewalk every night? When it comes down to it, not all drugs are equal. Heroin isn't "alcohol but worse". People who drink tend to get pretty nasty sometimes, and that's a social harm that someone who's nodding doesn't perpetrate. And in terms of physical h…

" People who drink tend to get pretty nasty sometimes, and that's a social harm that someone who's nodding doesn't perpetrate." If everyone did heroin today - instead of drinking - the world would fall apart. Can you imagine 50 000 people at a Football game, all doing smack? Sure, it would be a fun game. Within days, 10% of them would be full on addicts. Within weeks maybe 50% of them would. Those people would go thr…

Yes, my roommate in college went pretty deep into opioids for a couple years and eventually quit. He's now a PhD student studying math, smart as ever. I think we know very different addicts.

> Can you imagine 50 000 people at a Football game, all doing smack? Sure, it would be a fun game. Within days, 10% of them would be full on addicts. Within weeks maybe 50% of them would. Those people would go through hell or high water to stay permanently high.

You sound like my middle school DARE teacher talking about how our brains would fry like scrambled eggs on MDMA. (ie those numbers are pulled out of your imagination)

Here's probably the most strict source on drugs saying that the addiction rate is 23% https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin

That's still terribly high, and I think your ideas have an element of truth, but your approach to using unsubstantiated numbers and overall tone of self-assuredness is just kind of sad to see.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#183

Post by chillacy »

general_ai wrote: post #99
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a resident of Capitol Hill, I want this right near me. And I want to see another one in Belltown. And another near the waterfront. And another on Aurora. And then another twenty throughout the city. There are junkies shooting up around me every day. They deserve safety and dignity, just like everyone else.

As an adult, you have to make tradeoffs. Given that the supply of money is finite (unless you're Bernie Sanders who believes that money grows on trees), you have to decide whether to spend the money on this, or on, perhaps, kindergartens, schools, public transportation, and the like. TBH, I'd rather the junkies got a different kind of help: forced rehab. Got caught with heroin in your blood? Off to rehab you go. That…

I think safe injection sites are a short term solution. What you're proposing is a more long-term fix that addresses the root cause. I suspect (though I haven't spent much time thinking about this) that safe injection sites are cheaper to implement and test, before we go off and build rehab centers.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#184

Post by edblarney »

chillacy wrote: post #182
edblarney wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" People who drink tend to get pretty nasty sometimes, and that's a social harm that someone who's nodding doesn't perpetrate." If everyone did heroin today - instead of drinking - the world would fall apart. Can you imagine 50 000 people at a Football game, all doing smack? Sure, it would be a fun game. Within days, 10% of them would be full on addicts. Within weeks maybe 50% of them would. Those people would go thr…

Yes, my roommate in college went pretty deep into opioids for a couple years and eventually quit. He's now a PhD student studying math, smart as ever. I think we know very different addicts. > Can you imagine 50 000 people at a Football game, all doing smack? Sure, it would be a fun game. Within days, 10% of them would be full on addicts. Within weeks maybe 50% of them would. Those people would go through hell or hig…

"Here's probably the most strict source on drugs saying that the addiction rate is 23%"

I get what you are saying, but I don't think you're applying the general context: everyone doing heroin as common as they drink - that would lead to massive addiction and total health crisis.

So it's not '1 game' of 50 000 users, it's every game.

Frat parties, bars, dinner parties, 'netflix and chill', I mean pervasive open used of opioids. This is 'where people drink alcohol' - so now replace alcohol with opioids.

23% addiction in narrow circumstances, but considerably higher across the board.

A 'University' that had widespread use of heroin - as widespread as alcohol - would crumble very quickly. Near 100% of the student body would be addicted.

Nicotine is addictive to 100% of people if they smoke enough packs - the chemicals just do their job, and that means pushing the body to 'demand more'. For some, it means more smoking than others, and many would chose not to smoke enough to get hooked - but it will get you 100% of the time, with enough cigarettes.

"d I think your ideas have an element of truth, but your approach to using unsubstantiated numbers and overall tone of self-assuredness is just kind of sad to see."

No. Absolutely not - and you proved it yourself: a 23% addiction rate over a small sample would lead to considerably more over time.

Can you imagine 23-70% of regular people addicted to heroin (because that's what would happen if they did heroin as much as people drank alcohol).

'23% of the population hooked on heroin' (and this would be a low, conservative number) would be totally devastating to civilization - that's not an 'extreme' or 'irrational' position.

It is 'extreme' and irrationally 'self assured' to posit that alcohol and heroin represent the same level of public health risk to society.

They are totally different substances.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#185

Post by meowface »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #123
meowface wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're paying one way or another. If not this, you're going to see increased hospital and law enforcement costs.

I don't think that's true at all. Seattle has a disproportionately large homeless population when compared to other cities. We have the 3rd highest homeless population but are only the 18th largest city. And we're far from the only city experiencing a housing crisis. So it's a lot more complicated than "you're gonna pay for it one way or another".

Are you suggesting those homeless people will move to a new city if they can't get safe syringes or injections in Seattle?

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#186

Post by forrestthewoods »

meowface wrote: post #185
forrestthewoods wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true at all. Seattle has a disproportionately large homeless population when compared to other cities. We have the 3rd highest homeless population but are only the 18th largest city. And we're far from the only city experiencing a housing crisis. So it's a lot more complicated than "you're gonna pay for it one way or another".

Are you suggesting those homeless people will move to a new city if they can't get safe syringes or injections in Seattle?

I'm suggesting they first moved to Seattle because of the services offered here.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#187

Post by meowface »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #186
meowface wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting those homeless people will move to a new city if they can't get safe syringes or injections in Seattle?

I'm suggesting they first moved to Seattle because of the services offered here.

Certainly not impossible, but do you have any evidence to support that?

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#188

Post by forrestthewoods »

meowface wrote: post #187
forrestthewoods wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting they first moved to Seattle because of the services offered here.

Certainly not impossible, but do you have any evidence to support that?

Hard evidence? Nope. Maybe it's only 1%. Or maybe it's 20%. No one knows!

My #1 frustration with the homeless crisis in Seattle is that we have almost zero data. In fact almost all of our numbers on how many homeless are in the area come from the annual January one night count! It's absurd.

How long have the homeless been homeless? When was their last home? Where was that home? How many times have they bounced into and out of homelessness? When was their last job? What was their job? Why did they become homeless?

We honestly have no idea. Solving a problem is particularly different when you don't even know what they underlying source of the problem is!

Now gathering this data is actually pretty difficult. Many homeless don't have formal id. And many others have a justifiable distrust of the government and organizations which make them not want to use their real names.

In Seattle it gets even more complicated. Different groups don't like to share their numbers as to how many homeless they shelter or how many services they provide. Because if they all start sharing their numbers some of them are bound to start losing their funding. And we wouldn't dollars to be spent more efficiently by another organization now would we?

So why is Seattle's homeless population so wildly disproportionate to our city size? No one knows and we're just guessing.

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#189

Post by rdl »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #188
meowface wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not impossible, but do you have any evidence to support that?

Hard evidence? Nope. Maybe it's only 1%. Or maybe it's 20%. No one knows! My #1 frustration with the homeless crisis in Seattle is that we have almost zero data. In fact almost all of our numbers on how many homeless are in the area come from the annual January one night count! It's absurd. How long have the homeless been homeless? When was their last home? Where was that home? How many times have they bounced into a…

Yes -- getting better data and then creating policy based on that data makes a lot of sense. I think the safe injection site is actually supported by data from other cities as a way to reduce junkie fatalities, but it has a lot of other negative externalities.

(Fortunately for me, unincorporated King County is actually a completely illogical place to put such a center; no transit, no proximity to anything, etc. It will probably go in Pioneer Square.)

Re: Seattle Is Opening First in U.S. “Safe Injection Facility” for Heroin Addicts

#190

Post by rdl »

techsupporter wrote: post #95
rdl wrote: post #76

I was at a law enforcement armorer class with some police officers from various agencies in the Northeast recently. The most impactful thing I heard "People who get narcanned multiple times should just be killed" -- maybe not his literal belief, but the problem seems to be out of control. He had stories of "frequent customers" who kept coming to hospitals/police stations/fire departments to shoot up in the bathrooms,…

> As a King County resident, though, I want this facility nowhere near me. As long as it stays in Seattle or near SeaTac, I'm ok with it. Yes, this is NIMBYism. At the risk of being flagged into oblivion, this is why I f-king hate the Eastside. I live and own property in Seattle (so I pay King County taxes just like the rest of you lot) and I'm sick and damn tired of Seattle being the dumping ground for whatever crap…

I know some junkies in Bellevue, unfortunately, but I can guarantee there are currently no homeless/unemployed/special needs/etc. within ~183' in any direction (and I don't believe my neighbors have suddenly become junkies, either). I agree things are different in higher population density areas. And yes, the Eastside gets a far better deal here.
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