Yesterday morning, CKNW’s Bill Good, a longtime proponent of Vancouver’s ‘Insite’ program, had a discussion/debate with the Calgary Herald’s Licia Corbella. Corbella held her own very well but as the callers to the show proved, if you “dare” disagree with the official line about ‘Insite’ then many supporters of it will try to destroy your career or even threaten you with violence. You can listen to the entire discussion here or here.
Corbella is not alone in her belief that ‘Insite’ makes it all too easy for people to start using drugs or stay addicted to them. David Berner, a well known addictions counselor in Vancouver, very much agrees with her. The first part of the “Streets of Plenty” documentary that Corbella referred to can be viewed here.
That part of the downtown eastside is an open sewer. For some reason the lefties think it is hallowed ground. A fine example of social engineering. All the special interest groups have a stake in this , million dollars a day project. Licia is basically right in her condemnation of the policies that drive the failures here. The people who phoned in to this show are obviously damaged by the exposure to this area. Something has to be done, and “gentrification” is probably a good start. The culture of this area has to be broken up,dispersed, It would be a start.
Getting rid of the culture, even curing some of them, stops the money. That’s why they are against cleaning the place up
The worst disease being spread in this area is liberalism, here is the petri dish of liberalism for all the world of young voters to see up close. Maybe school field trips to this s..thole would be a good long term plan. “If it just saves one life” the lefties motto, while they are to stupid to see the hundreds of other lives being lost and damaged by their moronic policies.
Bill Good is clueless, but usually amusing and good for a few laughs.
I am betting he’ll go all Greenie fear mongering this morning about rising sea levels, as per yesterday’s chicken little stories about 500mm of increase by 2050.
When you hear about these claims, remind yourself of what is actually happening.
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/175.php
Greg;
Isn’t that just about the size of it. How many people do you think make a living from that cesspool? How different are the social services workers, the politicans from the drug pushers? They all get their piece of the action. At the bottom of the heap are the ‘victims’ who live off what is given them.
All of the above, particularly Greg’s comment. Just like the Federal Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs (whatever they call it these days) thousands of people are making money off the misery of others and have a vested interest in keeping that misery going.
Yup. That’s how the leftists roll: create a victim class and a bureaucracy of gov’t workers around it, and you’ve got a permanent voter base of both victims and those who live off them. Too many people don’t want an actual solution for those tragic souls addicted to drugs.
The debate is pretty concluded except amongst those who refuse to recognize evidence. InSite works. Fewer deaths no increase in drug use. Taxpayers shouldn’t fund it and the government has no business stopping it.
Bill Good. Ugh. Haven’t listened to him in years. Boring doesn’t begin to describe him.
That documentary was very well done,especially the ending,where the chief “FOOL”,Gregor Robertson,spouts his faux solution.The kid’s (Kreider)cynical “good luck” is a great way to end this video.
With Gregor Robertson,and the input of other fools like Dr.Gabor Mate, this situation will just carry on and on and on.
It will only end when the next generation takes charge,and the money runs out,as it inevitably will.
Then,things are gonna get ugly down in the DES.Really ugly.
Just spoke with David Berner about this yesterday. He told me that deaths are “way up”.
Anyone driving or walking past the DTES can see with their own eyes that drug use is higher than ever.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your Leftist ideology, LAS.
P.S. You’re as much a Libertarian as Jack Layton was faithful to his wife.
Thanks LAS, at least we know where you’ve been hanging out and the basis for your delusions and hallucinations… Keep that strap tight!!
Here was an exchange I had with the enlightened David Berner. I hope its not too long for the page. I won’t comment further.
GM
Gary Marshall said…
Economart,
The alcoholics will get their preferred drug regardless, from noxious sources. These people cost the taxpayer enormous sums.
So a program that will dispense a drug to a drug addict is horrific because of what?
Will it do these people any more harm? No. Will it do less harm? Yes. Will it save the taxpayer some money? Yes.
Offending the sensitivities of a few persons is about all the detriment this program possesses.
If they would only do the same for cocaine, heroin, and prescription drug addicts.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
February 18, 2012 at 6:03 PM
David Berner said…
Dear Gary Marshall,
You are wrong.
And you don’t know the territory.
This measures are heartless and come from the arrogance of superior intellects.
This program and all the deficit ideas like it are deeply offensive.
David
February 18, 2012 at 6:09 PM
Gary Marshall said…
Hello David,
I do know the territory. I have studied it for many years. Criminalizing drug addicts adds greatly not only to the woes of the addict, but also the population that must fund the addiction. The populace must provide homes to be broken into, people to be robbed, vehicles to be stripped, people to be maimed and murdered. They must provide hospitals and staff for these people to go and convalesce from overdoses and from the ill effects of the alternate substances ingested in use of the primary drug.
The costs to society of fighting a problem in the criminal domain are far greater than fighting it in the domain in which it truly belongs. Drug addiction is not a criminal problem. It is a medical problem.
So let the medical establishment deal with these unfortunate people in the manner in which they deal with those in torment and pain.
How have all these present and past efforts led to anything one might construe as victory? All I see are costs. Costs in murder, mayhem, medicine, courts, prisons, police, property damage. What has been the benefit of these enormous costs? Just give me one.
When you better understand the problem, you will better understand the solution.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
February 18, 2012 at 7:09 PM
Gerry Verrier said…
Gary, if addicts didn’t break the law to feed their addiction, they wouldn’t be criminalized. Criminal behaviour is what it is, and I refuse to forgive that sort of behaviour because someone is willingly addicted. Yes, I said willingly. I’ve known several folk who were addicted, employed and quite able to pay for their drugs. But most I’ve worked with are not employed and in fact many never have been gainfully employed.
Do you know what it’s like to be on the nod? Do you think it’s easy to work when you’re stoned out of your gourd? I suppose you’ll want employers to make exceptions for adicts next.
I have seen what the medical community has done for these folks. The system treats them like lab rats and as a former addict, I will stand up and refute the idea of harm reduction as anything other than helpful.
I will also tell you that addicts, for the most part, contribute nothing to our society. They are takers who never give. Why are you okay with that? Why do you make it sound like we have it backwards? That the laws are somehow at fault for people being addicts. Do you honestly think their anti social behaviour will go away if we eliminate the laws that make theft and gun crimes illegal? Are you prepared to deal with the deaths that will come about from inexperienced drug users who decide to dance with heroin because it’s suddenly available in a clinic for free?
I really don’t think you understand addicts. Go spend some time with them on the street and in a treatment center and get a sense for how entitled they are and for how criminal their thinking is. Of course not all are that way. But I think you will find most are. I hate to break it to you, but the medical system does not deal with criminal thinking.
I’ve been working with addicts for 25 years. I continue to have faith in their abilities and desires to be productive community citizens. They respond to those expectations.
As a citizen of this fantastic country, the idea of giving them drugs and paraphenalia so they can continue to be who they are sickens me and tells me you would rather let them have their way at a cost to our communities than to expect change. Expectations for change cost money as well.
When someone breaks into my car, it is a crime. When someone robs an elderly person, it is a crime. When someone neglects their children in order to stuff shit in their veins, it is a crime. When someone sticks a knife in the ribs of a gas station attendant to get their next fix, it is a crime. And you would rather forgive all that? Or do away with the risk to society by giving away free drugs and booze? Because it’s cheaper? Wow is all I have to say.
February 21, 2012 at 9:21 AM
Gary Marshall said…
Hello Gerry,
I see. So you criminalize their behaviour and then marvel that they break the law to feed the addiction. You marvel that they must thieve, attack, and lie to obtain their drug of choice. You marvel that they do not contribute because they must expend all this energy to acquire the means to get the drugs they desperately need.
It seems like you have set them up for a life of crime by interfering, doesn’t it? And why do you interfere? Because you think it wrong for one so hopelessly attached to some substance to consume it. You just don’t like the behaviour. It sickens you. You don’t understand it, therefore you condemn it and them.
How very sensible! Why feel differently with anyone with a medical or psychological condition? Why give anyone in distress drugs of any kind? Why give them to schizophrenics? Perfectly logical, isn’t it?
And if we give them the drugs, you argue that this will kill more of them?
I see. So if the state gives them a safe source of drugs and instructions on their use, more will die than if they must continue to obtain unsafe supplies from the street with little instruction.
Now that’s priceless.
I do not understand addicts. In order to understand why they do what they do, one must expend exorbitant amounts of time gaining their trust by speaking with them. I don’t have that time. Nor does anyone. Not even the state, thought it will expend enormous sums pretending to do some good.
That’s why I advocate giving them the drugs that they find insatiable. Only they have the answers. Only they can solve the problems. Until they request help, I can live in peace knowing they won’t break down my door and smash up my home in the search for a few dollars to feed their addiction.
Gary Marshall
March 7, 2012 at 11:59 PM
David Berner said…
Dear Gary Marshall,
Like Rush Limbaugh, you are a big fat idiot.
Gerry V. is a recovered addict. He has been clean and sober for a great many years. He works every day with other addicts, helping them in their efforts to become and stay clean and sober.
He understands addicts more than you ever will.
How comfy for you to sit on your ass and theorize from on high.
You are not wrong. You are not mistaken.
You’re an idiot.
And a destructive one at that.
March 8, 2012 at 8:30 AM
Gary, sharing that piece of private correspondence with David Berner is your “proof” that Insite works?!?
Insite is part & parcel of the modern day “Progressive” mantra: We can’t judge. Because of this, the whole social stigma of drug addiction being a bad & destructive thing has been removed. So there’s even less incentive now to stop using drugs than there was before.
Berner’s whole philosophy is for much more government funding and attention to go into treatment, not programs like Insite that enable a drug addict to continue on & on & on in their life of misery. Why is that so difficult to understand?
“Harm reduction” is a total fraud. Extending the lives of a few hundred ruined souls bent on slow suicide benefits no one but the bureaucrats and employees of the shooting gallery, who now have an iron rice bowl. The junkies get to enjoy added years of their miserable existence, and the general public gets preyed upon by addicts scrambling to raise the money to buy their still-illegal dope. And, as a taxpayer, I get raped to support all this crap.
Either provide the junkies with free pharmaceutical-grade heroin, and eliminate the need for junkies to commit crimes in order to feed their habit, or simply make it a capital offense to be a junkie, and shoot them all. Either course would provide more actual harm reduction to the general population of the country.
Just spoke with David Berner about this yesterday. He told me that deaths are “way up”.
Anyone driving or walking past the DTES can see with their own eyes that drug use is higher than ever.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your Leftist ideology, LAS.
You don’t know what a fact is. Anecdote =/= facts. The stats are clear: Insite wins.
Well said Gord, I agree completely.
I’m all for giving junkies as much free heroin as they want as often as they want. Those who can control their addictions will be able to stop criminal activity to feed their habit, and the rest will simply OD and save us a lot of money.
Unfortunately the crime lords pay the politicians to preserve the ineffective status quo, and the victim industry comes along for the ride.
Bill Good is incredibly out of touch with reality. This is basically how he sees himself: “Ahem, you know, I’m just an average guy, my kids are teachers, I moved from West Van into an apartment in the west end. I sympathize with ferry travellers, why most weekends I drive my Prius to my cabin on the Sunshine Coast and the ferry service is atrocious!” He honestly believes he’s just like us little people.
It used to be a BMW, but he is a real pinhead when it comes to the environment. He won’t allow people opposed to greenie BS. All the people he has on his show who are proponents of AGW, are people employed one way or another,in the “industry”.He is such a Lefty he doesn’t even realize it. Born with a CBC silver spoon up his butt.
There is a pilot program, provided by the Interior Health Authority in BC that provides the drug Narcan at Insite harm reductions locations, so that substance users can inject themselves or another substance user with the drug, naloxone, to prevent death from overdose.
http://tinyurl.com/6ufhx9h
http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20120622/KAMLOOPS0101/120629909/-1/kamloops/ih-may-supply-heroin-addicts-with-narcan
Due to the high death rate from herion, there is a pilot program provided by the Interior Health Authority in BC that distributes the drug Narcan at Insite harm reductions locations, so that substance users can inject themselves or another substance user with the drug, naloxone, to prevent death from overdose.
http://tinyurl.com/6ufhx9h
He told me that deaths are “way up”.Posted by: LAS
good, the problem is solving itself
There’s talk radio in Vancouver? Really? Hmm, it’s Liberal propaganda, all the time on NW, but really, the rtings have just disappeared, what with Shill Good, and, with the loss of their brand, the Canucks and Lions games. I mean really, don’t waste your time, I gave up on that DECADES ago, Even CFAX here in CapitalLeftyland, is absolutely dreadful, its leftist extreme greenism, all day long. It is not listenable, especially the nameless hosts, who lob softball questions all day long.
Talk radio is dead, at least as we used to know it.
As for the DTES, I was hoping the Chinese immigration would take over Vancouver, and change the dreaded culture. Unfortunately for us, the immigrants are smart, and decided Richmond was a better bachhead, and have left the dregs and mistakes to the exsitng Vancouverites, for Mayor Moonbeam and his comrades. Its all about symbolism, success is another story, and not necessary.
The ‘private correspondence’ can be found on his website.
GM
Well Robert,
Is it a progressive idea? They managed to outlaw all those alcoholic beverages some time ago. Then they realized the stupidity of their ways and repealed the maniacal laws. They will do the same with the hard drugs as well.
And I see all sorts of drug dealers working indefatigably in hospitals, pharmacies, and retail stores. You don’t much seem to care about them, now do you? But Insite receives all your attention. Now why is that?
My, you sound as intelligent and articulate as Mr. Berner!
GM
Why is my comment being held for moderation by the blog administrator? I thought this site was not moderated? My first one went through, received the SDA thank you for your comment, and then it disappeared. It was a respectful comment. Robert, check the comments held by administrator.
Insite works alright.
It works for the Poverty Pimps, as their clientele stays alive longer, although that’s not necessarily a benefit to society, due to the following comments.
It works for the ‘health’ workers, as they are endlessly gainfully employed by the druggies, as they keep them alive, in order to keep doing more and more drugs. Cool, Aiding and abetting the addicts.
It works for the addicts as they stay alive, to continue their life of petty crime, ripoffs, B&Es, car thefts and various illegal activities to satify their endless habit of vein atrophying narcotics.
It works for the cops, as they too are endlessly employed to defend the poor old junkies, while they track down those evil jaywalkers and cell phone drivers. The cops know who the REAL dangerous people are in society, after all.
funny thing is, the rest of society gets screwed by Insite, due to the lack of any measurable success, other than the poverty industry and its remoras.
Done. I believe it was held by the automated system because you posted 2 URLs. Or next time, convert the 2nd one to a TinyURL as well.
Thanks for your excellent summary, Dan. It could be aptly titled as “The Awkward Truth”.
Insite is a place where criminals can inject themselves with the proceeds of crime. No-one seems to pay much attention how the money these street scum use to buy their drugs is acquired. After living in downtown Vancouver for a while my personal opinion was the more dead addicts one has, the lesser the chance of ones apartment or vehicle getting broken into.
The real reason for abominations such as insite to exist is protection of government jobs for the social workers, “outreach” workers and other non-productive individuals who would be unemployed if their source of clients dried up through effective treatment programs.
As a physician, I’d be quite happy with narcotics freely available to people without a prescription so I wouldn’t have to engage in narcotic wrestling matches with patients. What people chose to put in their body is their own choice and they are also responsible for the consequences of chosing to use various drugs. In a society where psychoactive drugs were decriminalized, the only crimes would be for knowingly deceiving a customer by selling a different drug than the customer thought they were getting — for selling PCP as MDMA, the death penalty would be appropriate.
What is missing from this whole picture is individual responsibility. People get addicted to heroin by making a set of decisions which they are entirely responsible for. Injecting a white powder of unknown purity or strength that one buys on east Hastings is a very risky enterprise and the notion that one should make it safer is imbecilic. Instead, sell heroin to anyone who wants it. It’s cheap to make and soon the criminal gangs who make a good living from importing heroin would be out of business. Along with the decriminalization of drugs one would require a readjustment of laws so that people are considered completely responsible for their actions. If someone chooses to inject or smoke heroin to the exclusion of all other activities, especially given the extensive literature regarding physiologic addiction that will ensue from such actions, then they shouldn’t be able to blame anyone else for any adverse side effects which may result.
One of the first steps that anyone who has slipped into an addiction of any type needs to take is personal responsibility for their use of a drug and make a personal choice to stop using it. The victim industry doesn’t like this type of approach because it means that their services aren’t needed; they far prefer the individual who is addicted to a drug and totally dysfunctional but is kept alive long enough to provide employment for several state parasites till they retire.
Insite is supported by the BC College of Physicians, in clear violation of the criminal code, yet I have no doubt that the same College would immediately come down hard on anyone who prescribed morphine or cocaine to an addict because such an action is illegal.
garry, I got as far as “I studied it” and quit reading yer nonsense
so here’s an offer to, when I sell my home and start to have a little “off” time I will walk you through the world U studied and show U what you did not see. To study and/or pontificate fro outside the “circle” will only let you see what those in side the circle want you to see, and that very fact make many studies on human behavior useless, as, the ppl you study will manipulate you. When you walk in their shoes you will see a whole different world. As my now X said, about 2 yrs after we were married, “I thought those things only happened on TV or in the movies”, and she was born and raised in the west end of Toronto.
Hello Loki,
Always so well reasoned. I really enjoy your comments.
I see Insite as a preliminary step to moving this entire problem from the criminal into the medical domain. It seems only small steps will finally achieve this end. There are only degrees in this madness, and the less crazed the better. What we do to addicts is extreme madness. A system in which they can freely indulge I would rate as an improvement — for all those affected by the addict and for the addict himself.
Insite has certainly has its flaws, but its preferable to these people overwhelming the hospitals and the criminal system as they now do.
Regards,
Gary Marshall
When you have a family member as an addict (substance of choice doesn’t matter by the way), you see all the fallacies of Insite, and how its all about FEEL GOOD for everyone involved.
Except the addiction doesn’t stop. Massive Fail.
Intervention, abstinence, remorse, forgiveness and changing ones ways are absolute minimum necessities.
Cold Turkey. That’s why Insite is an effin joke, and a mighty expensive and dumb experiment.
Maershall. you don’t have a clue what you are talking about, and you are buying into the narrative of the softheaded.
Many street lights in the older parts of town often had electrical charges in the metal standards. A big issue in the DTES as men urinating on the poles could suffer a shock. The thought might be that this idea could be expanded to deter other unacceptable behavior.
That’s right, Dan. Its an expensive failure. Better to send the addicts back to all those low cost hospitals, courts, law enforcement agencies! Better to loose them on all those homeowners and business owners!
The addict will decide by himself when its time to stop. No one else can do it for them.
No. Its you who doesn’t have a clue!
GM
Loki –
Your erudite comments are always a welcome read.
A question – Have you any thoughts on the medical use of psilocybins in the treatment of addiction, depression and other debilitating mental health issues?
The late Terence McKenna had some very interesting topical insights.
Hello Loki,
That is a medical question on treatment, and there I am out of my depth. I usually find the best source of info on drugs and drug combinations are the patients and addicts themselves.
Sorry that I can’t be of any help.
Regards,
Gary Marshall