Hacker News Reader

Comment by frostyj | Hacker News Reader

dilemma probably is, if you build restrooms, they will do drug in there.

Give them a better place to do drugs; a place where they get free needles and can throw away the old ones properly (so they won't leave them lying about).

Im just curious if there are any examples of this kind of attitude actually working instead of just attracting more homeless people. So far it seems like San Francisco's policy of not enforcing basic quality of life laws has not made homeless people say "oh gee they sure are nice not to arrest me for dealing drugs and smashing car windows. To thank them I will not poop in the street."

Sure, there are plenty of safe injection cities all over Canada. They save lives, not promote homelessness.

https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/ha...

edit:

> "oh gee they sure are nice not to arrest me for dealing drugs and smashing car windows. To thank them I will not poop in the street."

This is terribly reductionist, and apathy is not at all the same as actually providing help.

With all of that homeless business going, would that toilet would be acceptable enough to use for a normal person? I certainly wouldn't go into one where I can find someone tripping, shooting, dealing, assaulting or smelling worse than the toilet itself.

I'm talking about a safe injection facility, not a toilet.

Supervised injecting rooms have been a great success in Sydney

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/lessons-from-the-heroin-...

I believe safe injection rooms are a net positive because they reduce strain on ambulance services. That's great. But what's next? Massage parlors and day spas? Im sure they'd be able to better find a job if they were nice and limber and smelled nice. Maybe we should just give them free drugs? Otherwise they're just going to steal and panhandle to get money for drugs. Maybe we should just give them cash so they can buy whatever they need? If they're finally out from under financial stress I'm sure they'll be able to turn it around then.

I didn't see anyone shitting on the streets in East Hastings in Vancouver or anywhere else in the world for that matter, but it was everywhere in SF Tenderloin.

take a look at germany. they concentrate asocials in special places that are easy to control, clean, and in high traffic areas where they cannot harm lone passing-by pedestrians. win-win-win

I can't really understand the attitude such as 'if they want to do drug, let them do it in a safe way at least'. It sounds compassionate and all, but isn't doing drug just, WRONG? I somehow feel this is an encouragement to them.

No, doing drugs is not wrong. Caffiene is a drug, beer is a drug, is pot worse? Where does someone else get to draw then line for each of us personally if not ourselves?

An adult has the inalienable right to do what they want with their own body.

This is similar perhaps to viewing the distribution of condoms in high school as wrong. Wouldn't that encourage teens to have sex? But when you look at the data, you see that kids who go to high schools with access to condoms have lower rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs. So, did the condoms encourage sex? Hard to say. Did the condoms reduce the problems that are associated with sex? Yes.

Similarly, do safe injection sites encourage drug use? No, because drug use is going to happen regardless of the presence of safe injection sites. It does, however, make it much easier to transition drug addicts into programs that can help them. The data is there.

So bottom line; if you don't like having dirty needles about and open drug use, support safe injection sites. Likewise, if you don't like teenagers getting pregnant or getting STDs, then support access to sex ed and condoms.

Depending on the drug, not continuing to do it may be fatal (this includes alcohol with a sufficient level of addiction).

Knowing that there is a safe place to go and treatment for it might reduce some inhibitions about it, but I doubt that many, if any at all, would actually start doing such hard drugs because of places like this.

More likely, if someone is in a position where they would consider doing it in the first place, they would do it anyway.

Taking drugs is wrong. It is wrong because it harms the person and the people around them and wider society.

Ideally we'd have no-one who becomes addicted to drugs.

But the existence of substance misuse disorders means we will always have addicts, and by definition addicts take drugs even when they know they are being harmed by those drugs. These people are not encouraged by safe injection spaces, because they were always going to be taking drugs.

How are those harms caused? How can we minimise those harms?

Some of those harms are caused by people not being able to access treatment to get off drugs; they cannot access drugs affordably so need to turn to crime to get money for drugs; they have to inject unsafely because safe injection places are not available.

A safe injection space means people are not sharing needles. People are helped to find better injection sites. Any infections can get medical attention before limbs need to be amputated. People can have drugs tested for purity. Ideally we'd be providing medical grade heroin so people aren't injecting contaminated drugs. People can be reminded about evidence-based drug rehabilitation (mostly substitution and therapy. For some reason the US has an over-reliance on abstinence retreats and 12 steps, which has little evidence of effectiveness).

Although I agree with your conclusion, every adult I know takes either caffeine, alcohol, or cannabis. Calling it morally wrong seems off to me.

I agree with you if I'm honest. I don't think I'm going to persuade parent poster about that, but I hope that agreeing on that builds a bit of common ground which hopefully makes my other points land better. I don't know if this works or if it's transparently manipulative.

I think it would be interesting to make a "voluntary prison" where anyone can go inside and receive free recreational drugs, meals and housing, but they have to have a clean pee test to get out.

If people want to lay around doing clean heroin, watching TV and hanging out with other addicts, give them a safe space to do so with minimal drain on the rest of society. Attach a minimum wage wavier so manufacturers could set up low skill jobs within, and addicts can save up for when they want to leave. Concentrate drug treatment, health, social and educational programs for economies of scale. Tie dose dispensation to biometric data to prevent people from receiving OD-levels of drugs, but allow them to slowly ratchet up if they wish to do so as tolerance builds. I'd imagine this could achieve a net-savings in cost of anti-drug programs and policing, and could be funded by cities which want to export their derelict addicts.

It would be an ugly business, but I think with proper considerations it could be more empathetic than current drug policy.

Is that worse than them shooting up in the middle of the street?

that can be discovered and rescued, but not if they just shoot in a cubicle that no one even knows they are there I guess. That's the only(?) explanation on why SF closed up all public restrooms on Market street

I've seen restrooms in businesses that are installing blacklights instead of standard fluorescent/LEDs to deter people from using drugs in them - because you can't see your veins under a black light.

I believe they use blue LEDs, not blacklights (which are UV.)

> that can be discovered and rescued,

I don't know if anyone would describe being thrown in an American prison 'rescued'.

I assume he meant given medical attention if they overdose.

Discovery isn't a problem here. It doesn't take a crack detective (pun intended) to discover people doing drugs on the streets of San Francisco.

That’s not a dilemma, that’s a solution to two problems.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com