Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/23/video-about-heroin-users-who-t.html
…
2 Likes
Riding the horse ain’t easy.
3 Likes
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I’ve never watched a documentary that is at once so honest about the horrifying reality of those addicted to intravenous drug use and at the same time so quietly hopeful about the possibility of practical and effective harm reduction.
4 Likes
I wonder if a similar thing is happening in California. The combination of Prop 47 making drug offenses so minor that police don’t bother enforcing them, and cheap and ubiquitous fentanyl have made it so I literally can’t walk down my street in San Francisco without seeing either needles on the ground or full on in someone’s arm or ass. I’ve seen police tell them to stop but then just drive away.
It’s a tricky one of course, since I would never advocate throwing addicts in jail, but the current system sure isn’t working and is making California and especially San Francsico a global laughing stock. I was just in France and literally every time someone mentioned SF they’d talk about the poop and homeless camps, and they’re certainly not wrong.
Consumption rooms are illegal in all 50 states. Organizations here in L.Á. do offer clean needle exchange services (i.e. - Homeless Healthcare L.A’s Center For Harm Reduction), but cannot legally allow them to safely consume on site.
Which is a shame. But I wonder if junkies are coming to California (especially SF and LA) for the cheap fentanyl and lax enforcement laws. There’s a ridiculous population explosion of junkies here in SF, and most that I’ve talked to are from other states. Admittedly I haven’t talked to many of them about where they’re from, it’s not an easy subject.
The only solution I can imagine is a massive opiod rehab program that’s available to everyone, but I doubt even that would work. So I guess we’re just doomed to have massive tent cities leaving their shit and used needles everywhere.
Human beings are not junkies
They most definitely are once they’re addicted to fentanyl. Absolute and total junkies that need help.
It is that very attitude as to why there currently aren’t any safe consumption sites in the U.S.
You’re just playing a goofy semantical game. I’d say it’s that kind of empty posturing that results in absolutely nothing meaningful being done about the crisis.
I work in this field and know first hand, personally and professionally, how anti-human labels contribute to the perpetuation of this challenge—one that doesn’t fall neatly into your convenient yet totally outdated philosophy.
Thank you for your contribution.
Oh they’re definitely humans, but they’re humans who are also junkies. Just as cancer patients are humans with cancer. You’re playing meaningless semantical games that are at best useless and at worst distract from meaningful action being done.
You’re probably right about my philosophy being “outdated” though, your fixation on meaningless details does seem to be a whole lot more modern, or at least common.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
