The arguments I have seen in favor of it are all about harm reduction. If people use where someone can respond in case of overdose, use new clean needles rather than ones that might spread...
The arguments I have seen in favor of it are all about harm reduction. If people use where someone can respond in case of overdose, use new clean needles rather than ones that might spread disease, then the cost to the system of public health is less and fewer people die.
But like all public policy, it is all about which priorities you are going to choose over others.
I mean, it's still actively happening despite being illegal now, and evidence from around Europe says this saves money and lives.. What should we do, if not this?
I mean, it's still actively happening despite being illegal now, and evidence from around Europe says this saves money and lives..
While i don't agree that this encourages illegal drug use (i don't think someone would use because of this room that would otherwise stay sober), i do think drugs should be decriminalized. There...
While i don't agree that this encourages illegal drug use (i don't think someone would use because of this room that would otherwise stay sober), i do think drugs should be decriminalized.
There are plenty of substances that can be safely used recreationally by adults, like LSD and MDMA, that we could regulate and tax, sure. And illegality of stuff like cocaine breeds drug cartels. Regulate safe stuff, decriminalize a lot and offer education & treatment for addiction.
Humans get fucked up, hell mammals get fucked up. Its in our nature to try to alter our reality & avoid physical & mental pain. Science says the best way to approach this is with education, medical care & compassion.
The nuance here is that the Scottish parliament don’t have the power to do that; I’d absolutely expect Portugal-style decriminalisation if they did. Drug policy as a whole is set by the right wing...
logically the solution is inescapable: legalize drug use
The nuance here is that the Scottish parliament don’t have the power to do that; I’d absolutely expect Portugal-style decriminalisation if they did. Drug policy as a whole is set by the right wing government in Westminster, the more progressive local government in Scotland disagrees with their stance, the best they can manage with the powers they do have is telling the police to ignore any technically illegal activity and allow a healthcare-based approach instead.
This is not how it works. The first conclusion is not always the right one. This room is primarily intended for opiate users and not for typical youth experimentation drugs like LSD/MDMA or weed....
Exemplary
This is not how it works. The first conclusion is not always the right one.
This room is primarily intended for opiate users and not for typical youth experimentation drugs like LSD/MDMA or weed. Besides, the youth would take this stuff not in a sterile and sad place like this. They would go to parties with their friends or experiment at home alone. Even opiates are mostly used in comfortable places until they can't anymore.
Opiates are often consumed by people who sub consciously try to self medicate their psychological problems or use it to vent personal problems. Of course there are people who just want to try it and get hooked, often times in America, people who got opiates prescribed like smarties chose to continue with Heroin because it's cheaper and are already hooked by now.
The longer they take them, the more of a pain it becomes for them. They do not enjoy this at this stage, but the withdrawal effects seem worse and endless.
This room is for people at their peak opiate "career", intended to make sure they don't kill themselves when they randomly get a fentanyl laced batch of heroin or other active impurities. They get medical help and a person to talk to. They do not get any substances there, they need to actively go there to seek help.
This is not a grey zone drug paradise and does not condone anything. I promise you, no one really wants to be there, especially not experimental friendly young adults. It's one of the few options we offer people in need and it's not a happy trippy party zone.
I used to help out in a drug related safer use forum and the amount of active users who died are primarily opiate users. Either they overdosed by accident - or by choice.
Punishing those people or rejecting them help because "it's their fault to try it" will bring them closer to the edge of choosing the latter. Those rooms serve a useful purpose and it's time that governments get this into their balloon heads.
I don't want to sound disrespectful, but you clearly have no experience with drugs (which is great!). But this also means, that topics around this are unknown to you. You are not helping anyone in judging things you don't understand just because it feels that way.
You've convinced me. I will stop trying. Edit: No one will see this edit, but it is obvious that ideas without experience means it is automatically wrong. I consider the world where that is true...
You've convinced me. I will stop trying.
Edit: No one will see this edit, but it is obvious that ideas without experience means it is automatically wrong.
I consider the world where that is true to be ... limited. Perhaps doomed, but certainly ... smaller than it could have been.
Man, this is not what people think of when they think of having a blast on heroin. They think of having some laughs at their friends house on opiates. Not going to some control booth for a hit and...
Man, this is not what people think of when they think of having a blast on heroin.
They think of having some laughs at their friends house on opiates. Not going to some control booth for a hit and then out to party.
This is designed for addicts to be safe. Granted we now need to motion towards decriminalisation and treat addiction as the health crisis it is, but that requires British attitudes to accept the reality that addiction is a real issue.
It doesn’t strike me as at all plausible that young people will be going to a clinical, somewhat unwelcoming space filled with people suffering from addiction in order to “experiment” with...
It doesn’t strike me as at all plausible that young people will be going to a clinical, somewhat unwelcoming space filled with people suffering from addiction in order to “experiment” with injectable opiates that everyone knows will fuck you up.
I’ve got a lot of other thoughts around this, but at the most fundamental level: what would be the reason for someone walk through the city with the drugs they’ve already illegally acquired to get to this space if legal enforcement were the main thing on their mind? This is a place for people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to clean needles or someone capable of giving them naloxone if they OD, it helps those who are already addicted and worried for their health, and changes nothing for anyone else.
At the risk of jumping to a conclusion here much like what I assume you are doing but have you done a drug before? Your response makes me think you assume the worst case with anything drug...
At the risk of jumping to a conclusion here much like what I assume you are doing but have you done a drug before? Your response makes me think you assume the worst case with anything drug related.
I will keep an eye out for your response once I'm back from doing my first heroin hit at this new and cool legal drug room.
You can go do drugs whenever you want. All you need is a contact and you can take as much heroin as you want in the safety of your home. The fact that you haven't done that (I assume at least) is...
You can go do drugs whenever you want. All you need is a contact and you can take as much heroin as you want in the safety of your home. The fact that you haven't done that (I assume at least) is because you don't want to, not because the only piece of the heroin addiction puzzle you were missing was a drug room.
My apologies, /u/JamPam, I read the first part and misinterpreted the second, but this post still stands as a response to /u/AllYourBase. You presume that people deeply in thrall to opiates still...
My apologies, /u/JamPam, I read the first part and misinterpreted the second, but this post still stands as a response to /u/AllYourBase.
You presume that people deeply in thrall to opiates still have safe, comfortable homes. This injecting room is for people who've hit bottom - their habits consume so much of their resources that they don't have safe places for anything anymore.
Safe shelter, clean needles, and heathcare are all that's being offered for these people, and likely will mean the difference between eventually overcoming their addictions, and their imminent loss of life.
They don't presume that, they are referring to someone who hasn't done drugs before and saying how unlikely it is that someone would use these facilities to try out drugs for fun if they weren't...
They don't presume that, they are referring to someone who hasn't done drugs before and saying how unlikely it is that someone would use these facilities to try out drugs for fun if they weren't already addicted.
The arguments I have seen in favor of it are all about harm reduction. If people use where someone can respond in case of overdose, use new clean needles rather than ones that might spread disease, then the cost to the system of public health is less and fewer people die.
But like all public policy, it is all about which priorities you are going to choose over others.
I mean, it's still actively happening despite being illegal now, and evidence from around Europe says this saves money and lives..
What should we do, if not this?
While i don't agree that this encourages illegal drug use (i don't think someone would use because of this room that would otherwise stay sober), i do think drugs should be decriminalized.
There are plenty of substances that can be safely used recreationally by adults, like LSD and MDMA, that we could regulate and tax, sure. And illegality of stuff like cocaine breeds drug cartels. Regulate safe stuff, decriminalize a lot and offer education & treatment for addiction.
Humans get fucked up, hell mammals get fucked up. Its in our nature to try to alter our reality & avoid physical & mental pain. Science says the best way to approach this is with education, medical care & compassion.
The nuance here is that the Scottish parliament don’t have the power to do that; I’d absolutely expect Portugal-style decriminalisation if they did. Drug policy as a whole is set by the right wing government in Westminster, the more progressive local government in Scotland disagrees with their stance, the best they can manage with the powers they do have is telling the police to ignore any technically illegal activity and allow a healthcare-based approach instead.
This is not how it works. The first conclusion is not always the right one.
This room is primarily intended for opiate users and not for typical youth experimentation drugs like LSD/MDMA or weed. Besides, the youth would take this stuff not in a sterile and sad place like this. They would go to parties with their friends or experiment at home alone. Even opiates are mostly used in comfortable places until they can't anymore.
Opiates are often consumed by people who sub consciously try to self medicate their psychological problems or use it to vent personal problems. Of course there are people who just want to try it and get hooked, often times in America, people who got opiates prescribed like smarties chose to continue with Heroin because it's cheaper and are already hooked by now.
The longer they take them, the more of a pain it becomes for them. They do not enjoy this at this stage, but the withdrawal effects seem worse and endless.
This room is for people at their peak opiate "career", intended to make sure they don't kill themselves when they randomly get a fentanyl laced batch of heroin or other active impurities. They get medical help and a person to talk to. They do not get any substances there, they need to actively go there to seek help.
This is not a grey zone drug paradise and does not condone anything. I promise you, no one really wants to be there, especially not experimental friendly young adults. It's one of the few options we offer people in need and it's not a happy trippy party zone.
I used to help out in a drug related safer use forum and the amount of active users who died are primarily opiate users. Either they overdosed by accident - or by choice.
Punishing those people or rejecting them help because "it's their fault to try it" will bring them closer to the edge of choosing the latter. Those rooms serve a useful purpose and it's time that governments get this into their balloon heads.
I don't want to sound disrespectful, but you clearly have no experience with drugs (which is great!). But this also means, that topics around this are unknown to you. You are not helping anyone in judging things you don't understand just because it feels that way.
You've convinced me. I will stop trying.
Edit: No one will see this edit, but it is obvious that ideas without experience means it is automatically wrong.
I consider the world where that is true to be ... limited. Perhaps doomed, but certainly ... smaller than it could have been.
Man, this is not what people think of when they think of having a blast on heroin.
They think of having some laughs at their friends house on opiates. Not going to some control booth for a hit and then out to party.
This is designed for addicts to be safe. Granted we now need to motion towards decriminalisation and treat addiction as the health crisis it is, but that requires British attitudes to accept the reality that addiction is a real issue.
It doesn’t strike me as at all plausible that young people will be going to a clinical, somewhat unwelcoming space filled with people suffering from addiction in order to “experiment” with injectable opiates that everyone knows will fuck you up.
I’ve got a lot of other thoughts around this, but at the most fundamental level: what would be the reason for someone walk through the city with the drugs they’ve already illegally acquired to get to this space if legal enforcement were the main thing on their mind? This is a place for people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to clean needles or someone capable of giving them naloxone if they OD, it helps those who are already addicted and worried for their health, and changes nothing for anyone else.
At the risk of jumping to a conclusion here much like what I assume you are doing but have you done a drug before? Your response makes me think you assume the worst case with anything drug related.
I will keep an eye out for your response once I'm back from doing my first heroin hit at this new and cool legal drug room.
You can go do drugs whenever you want. All you need is a contact and you can take as much heroin as you want in the safety of your home. The fact that you haven't done that (I assume at least) is because you don't want to, not because the only piece of the heroin addiction puzzle you were missing was a drug room.
My apologies, /u/JamPam, I read the first part and misinterpreted the second, but this post still stands as a response to /u/AllYourBase.
You presume that people deeply in thrall to opiates still have safe, comfortable homes. This injecting room is for people who've hit bottom - their habits consume so much of their resources that they don't have safe places for anything anymore.
Safe shelter, clean needles, and heathcare are all that's being offered for these people, and likely will mean the difference between eventually overcoming their addictions, and their imminent loss of life.
They don't presume that, they are referring to someone who hasn't done drugs before and saying how unlikely it is that someone would use these facilities to try out drugs for fun if they weren't already addicted.
Agreed and amended with redirection and apologies.