Instead of asking why some people get addicted to drugs and alcohol, the question we should be asking is: why doesn’t everyone get addicted? - Jordan Peterson One of the favorite smackdowns we often hear from “the left” directed towards those on “the right” is the accusation of the frivolous use of the phrase
“Also, people who use drugs are awarded their very own official acronym.” What was wrong with “druggies”? Oh, wait. Sorry, my bad. That is too accurate a name so it had to go.
Finally some politicians on the west coast are getting the message that their plan simply isn't working, and that maybe there are other things worth considering after all. Things like, "the safety of health professionals or patients in our hospitals," providing the police with "actual tools to maintain public safety," and families and children being able to use the parks safely.
Finally the RCMP are now saying it: “I would guess this is going to get some political attention because we are pointing out what has been deemed safe is not being kept safe."
Just did a quick check of the stats, and Canada lost 7,328 people to opioids in 2022, while tobacco kills nearly 50,000 each year, so not quite on the same scale.
I agree that there appear to be some faults in Canada’s various policies and their implementation, but I don’t see how that constitutes a ‘slippery slope’.
Interestingly, the opioid crisis hasn’t affected Europe or Australia (in contrast to the heroin epidemics we saw in the 1990s, when the drugs were coming from Asia, and affected almost every country, to a comparable degree). Canada has the world's second-highest fentanyl use after the US, while the drug is virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world. Overdose deaths in Canada seem to mirror the US, so it seems your problem lies mostly with your southern neighbor, rather than government interventions.
I'm not minimizing 50,000 deaths from tobacco (assuming that's even accurate), but there are people on the earth right now who are in their 90s and still smoke half a pack a day and have been doing that for the last 80 years. So, I'm not saying it's good for you, but come on - anyone who even attempts to make the case that there's a "tobacco epidemic" that we need to be terribly concerned about when we have what we currently have, is on a different planet - probably with our Prime Minister.
Of course, when these old-timers die, their deaths will likely be attributed to tobacco use, which is fair, because everybody dies.
This is actually a perfect example of a case where raw death numbers are almost irrelevant - if you're making this kind of comparison.
I’m not sure I catch your point about tobacco deaths being irrelevant. A tobacco-caused death is deemed to be an early death that would not have occurred if the person hadn’t been a smoker. How is that irrelevant? A fentanyl overdose is categorized in exactly the same way. One wouldn’t have died if they didn’t OD on opiods, the other wouldn’t have died if they didn’t smoke. And why are you skeptical about one number I provided, but have no problem with the other number. That seems a little biased.
The other factor as it relates to public health policy is the cost. A smoker dying of emphysema probably costs the government a hell of a lot more in health care spending than your average fentanyl OD.
I'm not skeptical of the number. I thought my point was obvious.
If tobacco is so addictive (it is) and if it's so bad for your health (it is), then why hasn't the government expanded its safer supply program to that? Why aren't they going door to door with vaping kits with less addictive drugs for all the nicotine addicts? If they're so concerned about the "stigma" of drug use, why put all those awful messages on cigarette packs? Wouldn't that just make smokers feel terrible?
Actually, most of our fentanyl comes from China. The US has similar idiotic policies to ours. San Francisco is a prime example.
We have a lot of weird problems here that the rest of the world doesn't seem to have. And by "here" I mean US and Canada. I think it has a lot to do with legislation and the decisions our governments have made.
It's a slippery slope because it just keeps going and no one with any pull does anything tangible to stop it. We just accept it as part of the natural order and we've basically neutered any possibility of real help because we don't want these people to feel stigmatized.
Australia has been a pioneer of harm reduction such as safe injection/supervised injection, needle exchanges and methadone programs, and they’ve been very successful for decades now, just as they have been across Europe and other places. This is my point about your ‘slippery slope’ claim. What slippery slope? All you're doing is pointing out faults in Canada’s policies, faults which people on both the right and left seem to be pointing out.
North America’s drug problems are different from the rest of the world because there’s a multi-billion dollar industry of getting people hooked on opioids, and the people making those billions spend millions sending lobbyists to Washington. In DC there are more than three very high-paid lobbyists for every member of Congress. The pharma industry quite literally writes the laws, just as gun manufacturers write their gun laws, which results in an influx of guns and higher homicide levels in Canada. Canada suffers from America’s corruption.
I don't disagree. Eat makes this a slippery slope is that nobody does a damn thing about it. Specifically the people who vote. I probably sound like a broken record, but there are scores of leaders that simply need to be thrown to the curb, but most people herr (especially Canada) are too nice and accepting to do what needs to be done. Things just keep getting worse and we hear, "we'll, it's not that big a deal - look how much worse it is in the US." The problem that exacerbates every other problem here is that most people simply don't care.
“Also, people who use drugs are awarded their very own official acronym.” What was wrong with “druggies”? Oh, wait. Sorry, my bad. That is too accurate a name so it had to go.
Beam me up Scotty.
With our new Online Harms legislation, calling them that just might get you thrown into prison...
https://open.substack.com/pub/mathewaldred/p/canadas-bill-c-63-life-imprisonment?r=15ke9e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Will they extradite a US citizen from Japan over it? …….. I better not ask.
Finally some politicians on the west coast are getting the message that their plan simply isn't working, and that maybe there are other things worth considering after all. Things like, "the safety of health professionals or patients in our hospitals," providing the police with "actual tools to maintain public safety," and families and children being able to use the parks safely.
Better late than never, I suppose.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10453051/bc-decriminalization-public-drug-use-overhaul/
Finally the RCMP are now saying it: “I would guess this is going to get some political attention because we are pointing out what has been deemed safe is not being kept safe."
https://nationalpost.com/news/opiate-from-bcs-safe-supply-drugs-being-sold-by-organized-crime-across-canada-rcmp
Just did a quick check of the stats, and Canada lost 7,328 people to opioids in 2022, while tobacco kills nearly 50,000 each year, so not quite on the same scale.
I agree that there appear to be some faults in Canada’s various policies and their implementation, but I don’t see how that constitutes a ‘slippery slope’.
Interestingly, the opioid crisis hasn’t affected Europe or Australia (in contrast to the heroin epidemics we saw in the 1990s, when the drugs were coming from Asia, and affected almost every country, to a comparable degree). Canada has the world's second-highest fentanyl use after the US, while the drug is virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world. Overdose deaths in Canada seem to mirror the US, so it seems your problem lies mostly with your southern neighbor, rather than government interventions.
I'm not minimizing 50,000 deaths from tobacco (assuming that's even accurate), but there are people on the earth right now who are in their 90s and still smoke half a pack a day and have been doing that for the last 80 years. So, I'm not saying it's good for you, but come on - anyone who even attempts to make the case that there's a "tobacco epidemic" that we need to be terribly concerned about when we have what we currently have, is on a different planet - probably with our Prime Minister.
Of course, when these old-timers die, their deaths will likely be attributed to tobacco use, which is fair, because everybody dies.
This is actually a perfect example of a case where raw death numbers are almost irrelevant - if you're making this kind of comparison.
I’m not sure I catch your point about tobacco deaths being irrelevant. A tobacco-caused death is deemed to be an early death that would not have occurred if the person hadn’t been a smoker. How is that irrelevant? A fentanyl overdose is categorized in exactly the same way. One wouldn’t have died if they didn’t OD on opiods, the other wouldn’t have died if they didn’t smoke. And why are you skeptical about one number I provided, but have no problem with the other number. That seems a little biased.
The other factor as it relates to public health policy is the cost. A smoker dying of emphysema probably costs the government a hell of a lot more in health care spending than your average fentanyl OD.
I'm not skeptical of the number. I thought my point was obvious.
If tobacco is so addictive (it is) and if it's so bad for your health (it is), then why hasn't the government expanded its safer supply program to that? Why aren't they going door to door with vaping kits with less addictive drugs for all the nicotine addicts? If they're so concerned about the "stigma" of drug use, why put all those awful messages on cigarette packs? Wouldn't that just make smokers feel terrible?
Actually, most of our fentanyl comes from China. The US has similar idiotic policies to ours. San Francisco is a prime example.
We have a lot of weird problems here that the rest of the world doesn't seem to have. And by "here" I mean US and Canada. I think it has a lot to do with legislation and the decisions our governments have made.
It's a slippery slope because it just keeps going and no one with any pull does anything tangible to stop it. We just accept it as part of the natural order and we've basically neutered any possibility of real help because we don't want these people to feel stigmatized.
Australia has been a pioneer of harm reduction such as safe injection/supervised injection, needle exchanges and methadone programs, and they’ve been very successful for decades now, just as they have been across Europe and other places. This is my point about your ‘slippery slope’ claim. What slippery slope? All you're doing is pointing out faults in Canada’s policies, faults which people on both the right and left seem to be pointing out.
North America’s drug problems are different from the rest of the world because there’s a multi-billion dollar industry of getting people hooked on opioids, and the people making those billions spend millions sending lobbyists to Washington. In DC there are more than three very high-paid lobbyists for every member of Congress. The pharma industry quite literally writes the laws, just as gun manufacturers write their gun laws, which results in an influx of guns and higher homicide levels in Canada. Canada suffers from America’s corruption.
I don't disagree. Eat makes this a slippery slope is that nobody does a damn thing about it. Specifically the people who vote. I probably sound like a broken record, but there are scores of leaders that simply need to be thrown to the curb, but most people herr (especially Canada) are too nice and accepting to do what needs to be done. Things just keep getting worse and we hear, "we'll, it's not that big a deal - look how much worse it is in the US." The problem that exacerbates every other problem here is that most people simply don't care.