Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

No your statement is incorrect. We do have safe supply in Canada. The CBC even wrote an article defending our safe supply program.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7071004

And this is a part of my problem with all this. I live in Toronto's downtown core and the explosion in drug issues since these policies came into effect is something I see and live with. And it's the same in our other major cities.

And too often the response from the proponents of these policies is outright misinformation, accusations of moralism. As someone living in an area where I am watching a drug problem spiral out of control, this is frankly infuriating.

This is my city and I see these people with addiction as neighbors I want to help. But these policies don't appear to be helping them. It looks to me like it's making things worse

If it's so good, if it's so helpful, why are there tent encampments full of people with drug issues popping up. We have shelters so it's not an issue of lack of shelters. Why are there so many more people high or doing drugs on our streets, why are overdose deaths the same or higher

Could the gradual impacts of economic downturn, unemployment and unhappiness post-pandemic be a contributing factor? From available data on drug overdoses and homelessness things appear relatively stable but some data from last year is missing. An uptick may be on the cards based on your observations. I'm curious what specifically is to blame in your view and why other factors seem unlikely? What do you suggest should change? Should the drugs be recriminalized? Or is the current strategy okay but needing some supplimentary steps?

I mean there aren't enough quality studies to make conclusions either way. But the promise to us was that safe supply would help drug users, and this uptick in homeless drug addicts and more people suffering visibility from drug issues at least seems to run counter to that that should at least give us pause and make us re evaluate

This was done because Portugal did it and people in places like hacker news started pushing it as evidence based because of self proclaimed success in Portugal. Well overdose and drug use is up in Portugal, it's up in Portland and it's up here. How long are proponents going to suggest other factors - this safe supply idea is starting to look less evidence based and more like a religious belief.

Did you read the article you posted? The article states how its beneficial to their patients for stabilizing their use and keeping them off the streets. Additionally the program has a total of 274 patients so it's not some widespread supply occurrence whatsoever, even if all of those people were located just in Toronto. That's a fraction of the addicts out there in that city alone. Or did I miss something?

You missed that I was replying to a poster who said we don't have safe supply in Canada and it was just a political scapegoat. Other papers have written about the more nefarious effects of safe supply but I avoided them because I suspected I was dealing with a group that would dismiss all criticism of it as propoganda from opponents who want to punish addicts with prison. So I posted a supportive article from a government sponsored source to prove safe supply actually exists in Canada and is not just a political scapegoat

Reply on news.ycombinator.com