The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to keep Insite open is going to spread more misery all over Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It’s now being revealed that the “studies” done to prove the value of Insite were flawed or even fixed. Can you say “Drug-gate”?
As we all know, the Leftist mind is impervious to any & all facts it disagrees with. It only accepts data that concurs with its Kumbaya worldview. But perhaps the words of a former drug addict will have some impact. Gerry Verrier guest wrote a stinging indictment of Insite on David Berner’s blog. Here are some snippets:
I am a former addict that will stand up and say that I do not support Insite or needle exchange programs. If there had been safe injection sites back in the 70s, I would be dead.
Providing for addicts to continue to be addicted is anti-social. Not expecting our addicted brothers and sisters to contribute to the betterment of our society and community is anti-social. Helping an addict stick a needle in his or her arm is anti social. Harm Reduction as it is applied to addiction is anti social.
The blog does not appear to exist.
Is there another link?
Your anecdata fails to convince in the light of the support of all the stakeholders of the project. One ex junkie against all those people & organizations who support it ?
The consensus is the exact opposite of ” spread more misery”. Now who is “impervious to facts it disagrees” with?
in the light of the support of all the stakeholders of the project.
Posted by: gray at October 7, 2011 2:43 PM
……………………….
All of whom are imbued with one, flawed, mindset; ten flocks of sheep are no more likely to be correct than is a lone ewe.
The argument usually put forward is that Insite saves lives.
Let consider those lives.
They will continue to be worthless,
They will continue to steal and damage property to get the drug money,
They will continue to over-use valuable hospital resources,
They will continue to spread disease,
They will continue to intimidate normal people,
They will continue to bring down property values where ever they are,
They will still die much much sooner than normal people because the life of an injection drug user is short, miserable and expensive to the rest of us.
The sooner these miserable pieces of shit die, the better off we will all be.
Remember … they CHOSE to take drugs and choose to continue. We owe them nothing.
Plus … Insite does wonderful work to keep illegal drug dealers wealthy and in business.
The only upside is that a handful of pretend bleeding hearts get a non-profit gig. That means government money for doing pretty much .. nothing of value and taking no responsibility for anything. Just baby sitting the vermin of society, like they matter.
I’ve got mixed feelings on this. Doing nothing to alleviate the misery isn’t an option either.
The simple fact is that the descriptive “addiction” speaks volumes; addiction IS the problem. I’ve heard so many interviews with (heroin) addicts that ‘claim’ to be normally functioning people, that I almost believe them.
However, having been the victim of numerous thefts/breakins (in Vancouver) my tolerance for the drug parasites is nil! Enforced rehab seems to me to be the only viable solution…clogging up the so-called Justice system certainly isn’t.
It must interesting to shoot up in government supervised surroundings; the junkie feeds his habit while some sweet faced do-gooder tries to coax him into rehab. I suspect it gets to be part of the experience.
BTW, I favour money for rehab, but I question what good it does when people are pleaded into it, rather than choosing to help themselves.
Is Insite a true needle-exchange site or is it simply a site that gives out needles to people who ask, but don’t present a needle to exchange (which is what San Francisco’s “needle-exchange” site do)?
I read about a program where a supervising Judge released addicts to undertake a cureby not taking more drugs. The addicts were subject to random drug tests. If they tested positive they were thrown in jail for a few days again. This was done repeatedly until they were able to abstain.
Recovering addicts say that this is what they needed to be able to stop.
I am supportive of this type of assistnce from the state as the addicts pursue a cure for their addiction. I agree with Verrier’s assessment of the government and supreme court of canada’s anti-social behaviour.
I recall an investigative piece in the Post or the Sun (probably the Post) pointing out that all of the “experts” writing the studies or being interviewed promoting Insite in the MFM (print and electronic) were all connected with Insite in some way shape or form. (Sorry that I can’t recall it exactly to give a link.)
The SCC decision on Insite is great if one happens to be a drug pusher!
It just means that the drug addled user will survive a little longer to take the next ‘hit’.
Pushers all across the country will be rejoicing…at their increased sales.
What the drug addled need is better rehabilitation programs rather than supervising ‘strung out’ behaviour.
Luke 11:24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, `I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Was the Lancet paper peer reviewed?
Why wasn’t this contrary evidence put in at the trial?
Does this decision create a duty to set up more safe injection sites to save lives and protect property?
And did the Court even consider requiring the site to be maintained for those who had already used its services and allowing the Federal government to withdraw the permit for all others.
It almost seems as if the government lawyers allowed or wanted this one to go against them.
A while back I heard Caldwell (before he was let go) on Sun TV, say he heard that Insite was being used to let some people try heroin for the first time.
Has anyone else heard this?
If true the whole thing should be shut down and the peolpe involved should be locked up.
Start nailing the dealers all dealers, seeing there is no capital punishment lock them up and shoot them up with their own drugs until they are hooked then COLD TURKEY the B+++++ds. Then do it all over again.
It’s sickening.
The whole idea of druggies being given places and equipment to keep them hooked on freaking ILLEGAL drugs defies common sense and logic.
The Supreme Court is following the Trudeau Charter brain free.
So, this is progressivism’s view of society’s proper responsibilities to the addict? Yes, it is. The additional drug deaths it causes are recognized and completely acceptable to the radical left.
This should be opposed by every citizen if only to deny money and power to the radical left.
My how words travel quickly on the interwebs….Good discussion going on here.
My voice is but one of many who will share the same thoughts, if asked. I, as well as other co-workers attending a conference in Regina on addictions several years ago, were branded as anti-harm reduction because we challenged the thinking behind harm reduction. I just could not bear listening to a parole officer gush about how proud she was of a particular inmate who had a history of armed robberies and who during his last brief stint in the community, had robbed a store without using a gun and was back in prison. This was her example of how well harm reduction worked.
Of course if the research materials and papers being produced to advance Insite and other harm reduction projects are being produced by harm reductionists, does anyone really think they are going to interview me for my insight on the topic? Not likely.
I’ve been working in this field for almost 25 years. In this facilty we work with well over 350 people each year. Men, women, GBLT folks, retired folks, 18 year olds, youth, families, dependent children, men and women doing re-unification with children who have been apprehended would be the people you would see in our facilities. We work with clients who come from the street, who come from prison, who come from detox facilities, who come from remote communities in the north, who come from the military, basically people from all walks of life.
Having said that, I’d like to think I have good insight into the lifestyle and the treatment process.
Overwhelmingly, the three most important things identified by our clients in consumer based program surveys are routine, structure and sobriety. Following those three are having a safe environment, and having counsellors who have been through addictions themselves.
There is total value in investing in rehab. People in rehab are clean, going to school, working in the community and paying taxes and learning how to earn their way through the world, parenting their children, cleaning up the neighborhood, dealing with trauma, learning about the dangers of addictions and criminal thinking,improving their health through holisitc means, learning budgeting skills, developing solid life goals, and it goes on and on.
Going to Insite provides none of that.
As to coerced or mandated treatment, take a person who is resistant to change and immerse them in an environment where former addicts are engaged in programs and watch the shift in their attitude and thinking. When they see how their peers are engaged in doing positive things, and how non-threatening treatment can be, it can be incredibly catchy. We see it happen all the time.
Robert said: “It’s now being revealed that the “studies” done to prove the value of Insite were flawed or even fixed.”
Yeah, no duh. The problem is that word is coming out now, after the trial is -over-. Would it have been too much to ask of the lawyers that they dig up the OBVIOUS flaws, moonbat staffed studies, the conflicts of interest, the bad study designs, and etc. and present same during the trial?
And since presenting a bogus study at a trial is, you know, PERJURY, would it be too much to ask of the lawyers that they phone up the judges and say “Hey, this guy LIED in your court dudes, you gonna take that?”
Since it is all in the name of harm reduction, why not create drunk driver only lanes on our roads and highways?
If it is a bad idea to have an open bar at an AA meeting, why is it a solution to give an addict a save injection site?
Is it just me, or do others see a strong parallel here between Insite and Canadian Supreme Court decision and Carbon Dioxide and the U.S. Supreme Court Decision that it was a pollutant?
That latter decision was so incredibly stupid AND INCORRECT. Who knows what “evidence” and “statistics” were presented to the court to help them reach their decision. Now that Climategate has utterly exposed rampant fraud throughout the climatological scientific community, it would be interested to see if a future reversal might occur.
As for Insite, I defer to EXPERTS like Gerry Verrier and David Berner, not bleeding heart trust fund liberals who claim to be experts on everything but know much of nothing on most things!
Are there any private backers for Insite? Why are there no private donors if this is a life-saving, life-affirming measure? No one wants to personally pay for drug addicts except those who enable them, something which points out to a personal dysfunction. Why the Crown would agree to this and on faulty evidence, too, is just beyond me.
whit seven
They do not coax them into rehab at Insite. I have a friend who is the director of a well know government approved recovery house for women who told me that she has not had one referral from Insite or its cousins the needle exchanges ever. They may direct addicts to detoxes but that is it.
After all why would they the more addicts using their services the more secure their jobs.
Insite is a enabler for addicts and does not help them unless you count that they help them stay addicted to drugs.
Robert, agreed and thanks to Gerry Verrier and David Berner for their comments. Furthermore, the bleeding heart trust fund liberals you mention never left facts get in the way of their agenda.
Whether Kay likes it or not or some random former addict likes it or not, Insite worked. The government under direction from Harper even went on a taxpayer-funded fishing trip to create anti-Insite buzz. Their studies actually vindicated Insite. These people are doing drugs anyway so they may as well do it safely, although it would be preferable not on the taxpayers’ dime. To hell with the drug warriors pushing their BS war. I only hope this precedent can fully overturn the criminalization of prostitution.
De-criminalize but don’t provide drugs or drug paraphenalia.
capt_bob @ 3:42 p.m.: “A while back I heard Caldwell (before he was let go) on Sun TV, say he heard that Insite was being used to let some people try heroin for the first time. ”
The Insite Wikipedia page notes that some people have experimented with different drug combinations at Insite because they know medical personnel are there to save them if they have a problem.
libertariansaresmarter @ 12:33 a.m.: “These people are doing drugs anyway so they may as well do it safely, although it would be preferable not on the taxpayers’ dime.”
Yeah, not on the taxpayers’ dime, that’s the libertarian position. You can advocate for legalizing or decriminalizing drugs without supporting Insite.
– – – – – – – – – –
On 20 Feb. 2009 there was an article in the National Post by Ross McKittrick of the University of Guelph and Bruce D. McCullough of Drexel University that discussed “peer review”. Some highlights:
– empirical research in “peer-reviewed” academic journals is often used as basis for public policy
– that’s partly because people think that “peer review” involves checking the accuracy of the research
– that might have been the case in the past, but no longer
– academic journals rarely if ever check data and calculations for accuracy during the review process, nor do they claim to
– journal editors only claim that in selecting a paper for publication they think it merits examination by the research community
– the other dirty secret of academic research is that the data and computational methods are so seldom disclosed that independent examination and replication has become nearly impossible for most published research
– in a new report we wrote for the Fraser Institute, we review a series of efforts in recent years to replicate empirical studies published in economic journals
– over a thousand papers have now been examined
– in over half the cases, the data were not archived
– when the authors were asked for their data, the majority reported being unable or unwilling to provide it
– where data was provided, the computer code used to generate the results was almost never released, greatly complicating the task of replicating the statistical results
– overall, the vast majority of economic papers could not be independently verified, even in some cases where the authors agreed to assist the replication efforts
– a set of interlocking problems in the peer review system have become pervasive through academia:
– – authors do not release their data
– – journals do not ask for it
– – thousands of papers get published each year that nobody checks for accuracy
– – independent replication has become so costly and difficult that it is rarely attempted
– we have noticed two inconsistent opinions: non-academics are surprised to find that peer review does not involve checking data and calculations, while academics are surprised that anyone thought it did
– one striking example in the context of the current US housing meltdown concerns a 1992 study by economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, published in the prestigious American Economic Review, that purported to show statistically significant evidence of racial discrimination in US mortgage lending practices
– based on this study, federal regulations were rushed into place that forced banks to loosen lending standards and threatened them with severe financial penalties for failure to correct the alleged discrimination
– it took nearly six years and a Freedom of Information request, for independent economists to discover coding errors in the data that invalidated the original conclusions
– but by this time the lending rules were in place that ultimately contributed to the buildup of bad mortgage debt now ravaging the US financial system
– – – – – – – – – –
The purpose of government is to protect individual rights. Most of these “public policies” are no business of government whatsoever. This includes whether private banks discriminate in their loans, how much caffeine is in a tin of Red Bull, or whether people get medical help when they break the law by using drugs. The new regulations apparently aimed at energy drinks serve no purpose other than to maintain wasteful, parasitic regulatory positions in government that drain the economy – the leftist version of “bums in seats”. It’s surprising that the Harper government seems to be going along with them. It takes a very strong principled position to fend off the views and suggestions of top-ranking bureaucrats. The Harper government appears to be lacking in the necessary backbone.
Some comment on McKittrick / McCullough here, among other places (I Googled their names plus “peer review”):
http://climateaudit.org/2009/02/18/mccullough-and-mckitrick-on-due-diligence/
I’m not sure if the National Post article is still available.
Apparently the impetus for Insite was a rash of overdose deaths in Vancouver in 1997-98, and the feeling was that the government “had to do something”.
I’m sorry, but the government didn’t have to do anything. Citizens dying from overdose deaths are no concern of the state per se. Only if you believe that these dead citizens have somehow insulted the state or are the property of the state can you possibly claim that government “has to do something”.
And note that the overdose death spike was already very much on the wane before the clinic opened. That too is evidence, that the Court and the advocates ignored.
The Supreme Court decision was predicated on an ongoing facility that had an exemption from the drug laws. What happens in a city that does not already have an Insite-like clinic? What if the druggies in Toronto decide that they too have the same “right” to an exemption from the drug laws? Does the alleged evidence from the Vancouver experience automatically translate to Toronto, thus making a clinic there mandatory? Would the Supreme Court go so far as to order Toronto’s city council to start up an Insite clinic there, whether it wants to or not? If so, the court would not be interpreting law but passing laws on its own — which it cannot do. To order civil servants who have the power to make discretionary decisions to make them a certain way only is nearly the same thing.
The Insite decision has set a horrible precedent. The Court has acted rashly and thoughtlessly. Were it not for the B. C. tobacco act decision in 2005, in which retroactive law was mystifyingly not found to be contrary to fundamental principles of justice, Insite would probably be the worst decision from the McLachlin court.
Meanwhile, the articles on the Insite fiasco keep on coming:
Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Oct. 5, Jeffrey Simpson:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/supervised-injection-sites-ideology-comes-with-big-blinkers/article2191042/
Simpson kicks off with: “In the ongoing struggle between ideology and evidence within the Harper government, ideology too often wins.”
There are two things wrong with this statement.
The first is that this is not a battle between ideology and evidence. The alleged “evidence” was on the health side, whereas the issue in question was one of justice. Health evidence cannot determine the disposition of a justice issue. It cannot determine what is right and what is wrong.
One could easily provide evidence that banning cars would cut the death toll from traffic accidents to zero. But that would not mean that government should ban cars.
Second, the supposedly “anti-ideology” position is an ideology of its own.
This SCC decision is why the not withstanding clause is available for use. Dear PM Harper use the damn thing and save a few lives from these scumbag liberanos.