Harm reduction & Safe supply

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CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca

I thought drug consumption sites were dangerous. This is why I was wrong (www.thespec.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca to c/harmreduction@lemmy.ca

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[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

There is an issue they we need more then just safe consumption sites. We need the support network to help people get out of the situations that are causing them to use. And we don’t have that.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You're right, but that's not a reason to close safe injection sites. Generally, we need to stop treating addicts like criminals. Addiction is a disease, and the corrective action is healthcare.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

The disease model of addiction is popular among laypeople but has been viewed as a harmful (or as least less helpful) model by researchers for more than a couple decades.

The disease concept has been applied mainly to alcoholism, less often to drug use. Such medical models emphasize the role of physiological addiction anchored in genetic factors and leave aside the psycho-social aspects of the problem [34-35]. Thus, the future alcoholic is considered to have an innate predisposition to drink excessively even before the problem is manifest. Such a reductionist view treats alcoholism as a unitary and discrete category instead of seeing it as a complex multidimensional pattern of behaviour. Using the disease model oversimplifies the issue in a purely medical perspective [36]. Neuhaus [37] notes some logical inconsistencies in this trend of thought. Indeed, there is a circularity in reasoning by labelling someone an alcoholic because he or she drinks too much and explaining that he or she drinks too much because he or she has the disease of alcoholism. There is another inconsistency to note. The purely biomedical model sees people as not responsible either for the problem or the solution [38]. The claim that treatment must be complete abstinence, inherent in the belief that alcoholism is a medical condition, has, however, been made by Alcoholics Anonymous. This organization functions according to an enlightenment model which states that people are not responsible for the solution of their predicament but are blamed for causing their own problem. This again shows the shift from a biological defect to a moral defect. The disease model of alcoholism has been applied to drug issues but with less research effort to ground it on an empirical basis (even though findings on the hereditary origins of alcoholism have not been solidly established). Whenever theorists stress physical addiction exclusively, they operate within the same framework.

Addiction is not caused by drugs at all per se. The circumstances of a person's life predict addiction overwhelmingly over the mere taking of a drug.

The corrective measure IMHO is UBI. But that reduces the ability of capital to exploit labour.

[–] Godwins_Law@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago

Yes but policy makers HATE to acknowledge that poverty and social issues underlie many of our problems.

[–] Mammothmothman@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

That's too complicated. The easy answer is that addicts are bad evil people who deserve to live in misery and agony and any kindness towards them is an act of moral weakness.

/s for contextually impaired.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Safe injection sites are clearly a part of that support network.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sure but they can’t be alll we do and that seems to be all we do. Which is not helping anyone.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's not allll we do, safe injection sites are one of the methods of establishing relationships with addicts. They are exposed to and actively offered other interventions. Yes, we need to provide more interventions, because there are often long waiting lists (ie several YEARS long) to get more than the most basic help. Defunding safe injection sites isn't going to advance that goal.

Where do you get your information about the subject?