May 12, 2017
Tell me your views on supervised injection sites
Tagged with: Boyle Mccauley Health Centre, Community, Edmonton, Edmonton Griesbach, Feedback, Health, Kerry Diotte, Kerry Diotte MP, Member of Parliament, Ottawa, Safe Injection Sites, Supervised injection sites, Survey
Harm reduction not only helps people instead of punishing them for being ill but also saves money in the long run. We need it, and although the opioids crisis has moved the drug use problem much more widely across the city, the inner city is the natural location for many of these services as so many potential clients are there.
Kerry you don’t even live in the area you represent. So screw off
How disrespectful and ignorant you are. Where do YOU live?
Right off 118 ave…where do you live??
That’s a far cry from the heart of Chinatown where I am, although you are still in a distressed area. Services belong in ALL quadrants if the city. The reason we have all the vulnerable is because they are DRAWN here. Not everyone in McCauley is vulnerable. But we have it all. It’s time the rest of Edmonton shares the burden of looking after addicts. We are a ghetto because of systemic interference by the city & province. Homes first, Intervention, Address Addictions. Instead of endorsing the status quo.
Here is my main issue, the other day my sister, my neice and myself were driving back to my place and my niece says…I have to walk this way from school to catch the bus and one day I saw a guy shooting up at the bus stop, and I was scared. Now I’m not saying that will stop with safe injection sites, but hopefully people will be more inclined to take it off the streets. I have two recovery homes just off 118ave and a halfway house for offenders. I agree it doesn’t just need to be in McCuley, but it’s a start. And hopefully it will make it to my area, and others that need it. And Kerry represents 118ave and I think he is a far cry from knowing about the issues that we deal with.
Things that are “a start” in McCauley, always stay there. ALL new subdivisions and neighborhoods no matter the location need designated zoning for shelter beds, services, injections sites, and soup kitchens. When EVERYONE see how easy these places can end up in ANY area, that’s when the stigma become less severe. Kind of like RF1 areas being shown the door and told that they are not “too good” for lot splitting and density.
So these safe injection sites are supposed to make the community safer by ensuring needles are disposed of properly. Are these sites also going to keep the users on-site until the effects of whatever they have injected themselves with wears off, or are they just going to release them stoned out of their minds into the community? People do some pretty terrible things while under the influence, and tend to use this as an excuse for their criminal acts if they ever get caught. The safe injection sites might make things marginally safer for illicit drug users during the brief period of time they are actually on the premises, but all of that vanishes the moment they step out the door.
Anita: You live in Highlands and do not live where this is proposed to happen. You do not have the right to say what will affect my children and I here where we live by the sites. You do not deal with these addicts on a day to day basis. Kindly allow those directly affected by this to weigh in here. For decades authorities have picked up these troubled people and dropped them off where I live creating this misperception that only addicts live in here. There are families with children and we have a right to be heard as well. With all due respect, Trish Filevich
Taking public money to aid and abet drug addiction is bad public policy and immoral. It is an endorsement of people committing suicide, slowly and painfully. If this is supposed to be help for drug addicts it is terribly misguided; you can’t cure an addict by providing him with a drug he is addicted to. We’d be outraged if gvt took your money to buy cigarettes for addicts – yet we pay for addicts to inject deadly drugs. Instead of treating their illness we are enabling it. This is just another symptom of a society that has lost its moral underpinnings.
Anita & Marcia – Where do YOU live? I can bet it’s no where near any of the proposed sites. I forgive you that in your complete ignorance of the dynamics of a distressed neighbourhood you don’t even consider the children, elderly, families and businesses that are in Chinatown where ALL sites are proposed. Where do you think addicts get drugs from. YES THAT’S CORRECT, DRUG PUSHERS. Where do they get money to purchase drugs? THAT’S RIGHT, PROCEEDS FROM CRIME. Where do they go after shooting up? THAT’S RIGHT, BACK ONTO THE STREETS OF MY COMMUNITY. Stop romanticizing the plague of addiction in my neighbourhood. Homes, Intervention, Address Addictions. And Marcia – have some respect. Your ignorance precedes your closed mind. Thank You for caring about US Mr. Diotte.
I am sick of my home being treated like a throw away community used as a convenient electoral dumping grounds. We are not an unwelcoming community, but we are at a maximum concentration and if we are to add new services for a single demographic, existing services for that single demographic need to be relocated to accommodate – sick of outsiders coming in for 50 years saying “just one more service, just one more service” and then the community being shamed and being painted as monsters when we even question these new “services”. We pay taxes – why is my money being used to destroy my own neighbourhood? The city seriously needs to stop doing the “revitalization song and dance” to attract new people into the area, then betraying that investment by making back room deals. Time to look at a tax free zone, buyouts, or other strategies.
Well, that was a long drawn out process just to join the discussion. I grew up in central Mcdougall and I am proud to still call it home. Whereas I appreciate that drug users will potentially be saved. I take issue that they will all be “saved” here. As a former addict I chose to live in this area with the hopes that it will clean up and become a premiere community to live in and enjoy. The alleged consultation that was presented to city council is a load of horse pucks. Who in their right mind would vote yes to have 100% of the safe injection sites in their community? This is a serious event, these are PERMANENT! This is not a trial run, this is full blown anarchy! If this is the way the health system must work today it should be spread around the city so users may actually use them at their behest. Not have to find a way to get downtown. I don’t see the inner dialog going- man, I really want to get high. Hopefully I have enough money left on my bus pass to get to injection site. I also wonder what number I should take? –
It should be everywhere, in every community EQUALLY.
Family lives in Norwood, where you don’t have to stray far to find a hypodermic, a beer can or a lost soul yelling obscenities at somebody or nobody. Not altogether against these sites, but you can’t imagine they are anything but a band-aid solution, and you can see how well the band-aid is treating the carcinoma in Vancouver.
The benefit of having an injection site is definitely questionable as it just sends a wrong message to the whole world that doing drug is not so bad because the government and society are supporting it. Having a site that is not having immediate access to intensive health care is not safe either. If a site must be set up, it should be at a hospital or health care center.
I have lived in Edmonton off and on since post WWII and from my memory this area inhertied a seedy reputation. Back in the day it was hookers and less desirable taverns. And the NGO industrial complex has made the area its home turf to help those less fortunate and made the area a magnet for them. As many of you have said, this should be spread around. I roam many parts of the city and I see those less fortunate all over including in my back alley. But many residents of the area want this to be their home community and to keep piling on services will force them out of the area, likely with great loss. And the area will never be revitalized. But I have to ask when will it stop. I would expect them to be handing out free beer to all those who are alcoholics, so they can each have their own bottle and not have to worry about contracting disease from those they share with now. Addiction is a disease, and it must be treated medically, so where is the specialist addicts hospital to go with all this. Where are the mental health service centres, etc etc…..And let’s start understanding root cause and attack that, not the people who are addicted. Esle this will continue to be a problem and likely ever larger. There needs to be a coordinated strategy that ties all resource together with the end goal of rehabilitating these people. Making it easy for them to keep their habit, regardless of motive, does not seem the best way to go…..
I have mixed feelings around this. We need to look at studies from diffrent cities.
There is ample peer-reviewed evidence in support of the efficacy of supervised injection sites (SIS; see e.g. a systematic literature review by Potier et al., “Drug and Alcohol Dependence”, 145 (2014), 48–68).
According to the studies cited in this article, the benefits of SISs include:
a) reduction in nearby lethal overdoses (Vancouver)
b) decreased syringe sharing (Vancouver, Sydney)
c) increased participation in addiction-related care (Vancouver, Sydney)
d) decreased syringe litter (Vancouver)
e) no increase in drug-related crime (Vancouver, Sydney)
I am a McCauley resident (107 Ave) and a member of the McCauley community; so, too, are those people who inject drugs and will benefit from supportive services.
I support the injection sites in the strongest possible terms.