In MA they tried to convince the public to allow facilities to use drugs. And they constantly point to research that shows there's no increase in crime or detriment to the local community.
And you know what. They're right. That's overwhelmingly what the research shows. Even research that focuses on Vancouver.
But I've been to Hastings street. The area where the use facilities are is not safe. And it has definitely harmed the local community. You can see that with your own eyeballs. You can say that it's helped people who use drugs, ok, but that it hasn't changed the community seems absurd to say.
So I don't get it. How can people's lived experiences be so far away from what these papers say? How can the experts in the field say things that seem so obviously false? Is there something wrong with what they're measuring? Is there really no harm at all, then what explains the state of Hastings? The only time I've tried to get answers professionally I couldn't get anywhere.
In all of the research that I'm involved with when simple observations disagree with our models and benchmarks we update the models and benchmarks.
If this whole research area wasn't toxic it would be interesting to look into more seriously. But I suspect that many scientists stay away because of the bad blood.