One of the largest provinces in Canada is moving forward with a plan to become the first province in the country to decriminalize several hard drugs. Starting on Tuesday, residents of British Columbia who are older than 18 will be allowed to carry up to 2.5 grams of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine and morphine, the BBC reported. British Columbia was granted permission by the government to try out the plan for three years, when the drugs will still be illegal but those carrying less than 2.5 grams will not be arrested, charged or have the drugs confiscated.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/world/british-columbia-becomes-first-province-canada-decriminalize-heroin-fentanyl-cocaine-other-hard-drugs.amp
Heroin and fentanyl dealers always carry very small portions, and now they will do it completely legally. 3 milligrams of fentanyl are lethal, so 2,5 grams can wipe out quite a few inconvenient Canadians who still remember the concept of rights.
Yes, these people got themselves addicted because it felt nice. But shouldn’t their government be playing on their side and not making it easier for the dealers to wipe them out? Why won’t they even just confiscate a clearly lethal dose?
Vancouver in British Columbia had already become unlivable because of throngs of homeless addicts crowding a formerly lovely city. If you can’t lock people up permanently under the pretense of COVID, the next best thing is to keep them at home by filling the streets with the dysfunction of drug addiction.
Make no mistake, this is not about the “right” of the addicts to kill themselves with their addiction. It’s about polluting our public spaces and squeezing us out of them. It’s about shortening the lifespan of the population that still remembers how to protest and refuse to be treated like cattle.
Clarissa's Blog 
And completely by coincidence, an Ontario judge declares it a “right” to build homeless camps on public land. Which is about, as you say, making public spaces unliveable for everyone else.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ontario-judge-declares-a-right-to-build-homeless-camps-on-public-land/wcm/f71b8655-e0fe-46e7-ad71-ea9c4bea0436/amp/
(The article is behind a paywall but the headline is enough).
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Yes, a total coincidence. Nothing to see her, move right along.
The trucker protests were supposedly hugely dangerous to the public but crowds of addicted homeless are a huge public good.
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Another aspect i do not see talked about that is concerning to me is law.
The rule of law is a fundamental bulwark defending liberty: individual and State.
Destroying the rule of law is essential to defeating individual liberty.
Addicts OD’ing on “legal” illegal drugs is a symptom of disregarding the rule of law.
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That’s another very important aspect. This is typical austerity where public services that we used to take for granted are being withdrawn under the guise of a concern for people’s “choices.” Obviously, the choice of a law-abiding citizen not to be exposed to scenes of human degradation in public spaces is never taken into account.
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austerity is a weird way to think of it. Addicts are hugely expensive in the hospital system– virtually none of them are paying customers, but once they start going downhill, they’re in and out of the hospital for a week or more at a time, for months or years until they die.
…or does having fentanyl more available just ensure they die faster?
just doesn’t seem like they have any trouble getting hold of the stuff here, already
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“austerity is a weird way to think of it”
First rule of political crazyspeak: austerity is never about saving taxpayer money, it’s always about transferring public goods to private hands (selected by those in charge of the austerity program). Don’t pay attention to the rhetoric pay attention to the results.
“Addicts are hugely expensive in the hospital system”
that means money funnelled to those who deal with the addicts…. insurance companies raising premiums, government subsidized treatment facilities, government subsidized ‘outreach’ programs etc.
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Ok, it does make sense that way.
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Austerity always ends up costing more, that’s the paradox. For example, if you decide to save on dental hygiene and dental care, you might end up with a much more expensive problem down the road.
Addiction is costing a lot in terms of medical care, tourism, workplace productivity, crime. It saves two dimes and loses 20 dollars but nobody cares.
It’s the same in education. We saved some trivial, miserable amount and ended up repelling potential students who aren’t interested in coming to an overflowing classroom and no courses beyond the bare-bones offerings we were allowed to keep. It’s so massively stupid! As a colleague said at the lady department meeting, “our leadership consists of the most incredible dumbasses.”
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And then there’s the issue of the very successful propaganda campaign that convinced the public that a heroin addiction cannot be treated and the best you can do is transfer the addict to an addiction to methadone or buprenorphine. The goal is to create a lifelong customer for the pharma industry. Public funds get channeled into the pockets of the same pharma execs who got these people addicted in the first place. What’s not to like?
And this lie about the impossibility to cure addiction (and especially heroin addiction) has become “a truth universally acknowledged.”
We could cure these people a lot more cheaply than paying for the methadone clinics and gigantic narcan supplies. But then the pharma industry will lose profits, and that’s a big no-no.
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“propaganda campaign that convinced the public that a heroin addiction cannot be treated”
A number of years ago I questioned the wisdom of facilitating heroin use (the actual result of a program supposedly meant to help addicts). I was met with a large chorus of people for whom heroin addiction was a protected category (not the way they put it but what they were saying). How dare anyone challenge the wisdom of facilitating addicts shooting up…
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It’s like that old joke.
“How can I lose 30 lbs in two weeks?”
“Hey, I can do you one better. You can lose 30 lbs in 2 hours.”
“How???”
“I can amputate your leg.”
We now believe that treating adolescents who are unhappy with their bodies should include amputation of body parts. Next, we should try the guillotine to treat migraines. It looks like the only reason that’s not being tried is because the patient won’t need any medication after the procedure.
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Used to know a gal who’d done the methadone program. She got off the methadone using vitamin D and B12. I have no idea if the effect was physiological, or just enough of a placebo to get her through, but whatever works, right? Always wondered if it would have worked just as well for the heroin.
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I hate the term austerity. I much prefer corruption in these situations.
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Thing is, let’s take our new(ish) chief administrator on campus. He’s not gaining anything personally from these crippling budget cuts. We don’t have bonuses or salary increases. So it’s not corruption in the sense that he’s doing something for personal profit. He’s pretty much burying his career right now because once he runs this college into the ground, nobody will want to hire him. But he plows on with a maniacal tenacity of a crazed lemming.
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I guess it’s a different situation. In SA there have been huge increases in university budgets which have made them targets of criminals demanding their share of the loot.
https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/slain-university-of-fort-hare-bodyguard-laid-to-rest/
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comments getting too narrow:
“treating adolescents who are unhappy with their bodies should include amputation of body parts”
CW: Japanese and weird (redundant I know). I happened across an explanation for some female-to-male trans ideation…..manga (Japanese comic books – a huuuuuge field over half of everything published in Japan is a comic book).
It seems there’s a sub-genre about twinks (young lithe gay males) being sexually exploited by bigger stronger guys. In Japan the audience is young women; gay men have their own genre…
Anyhoo, a surprisingly large number of young women in the US who want to become men had been devotees of this genre and developed sexual fetishes about gay men….. only to become bitterly disappointed and angry to find out gay men aren’t interested in them because…. if they wanted access to vaginas they wouldn’t be gay in the first place….
The things you can find out on the internet if you read long enough….
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“sub-genre about twinks”
Now I’m wondering if kpop is a gateway drug for this…. Apparently a big part of fandom is fantasizing about semi-relationships between boyband members (a lot of female students in Poland are crazy for kpop….).
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There’s quite a lot of the kpop craze among the young people on Ukrainian social media. It’s always young women who are awkward and unhappy in their personal lives. And it’s definitely at least 80% about sexual fantasies of these very girly-looking boys in the bands.
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