this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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Will the courts stop Doug Ford from banning safe consumption sites? (emmettmacfarlane.substack.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by ValueSubtracted@startrek.website to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Note that the government isn’t talking about moving SCSs outside of their arbitrary 200m zone from schools, they’ve simply announced their outright closure.

This is the crux. I don't really want a safe consumption site near my kids' school or daycare. I even think 200m is probably insufficient for a distance from a school or daycare. (I don't know what the actual distance should be, 200m just feels insufficient)

But I also want SCSs. Literally just move them. The infrastructure demand is not that intense.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

So tell me, if the choice is between having the safe consumption site close to your kids' school and having people doing their drugs in the open near your kids' school and leaving their used needles lying on the playground, which are you going to pick? Often, these places are where they are because that's where their clients already are.

You may also want to measure out the radius of 200m from every school or daycare in your town or city on a map and see how many places are left where they can park SCSs. I admit I haven't actually done this, but my bet is that the options will be considerably reduced.

It's just about inevitable that some SCSs are going to end up in someone's backyard. Figuring out where they'll do more good than harm is more important than enforcing arbitrary limits. This is typical right-wing "think of the children" rhetoric. Don't fall for it.

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

if the choice is between having the safe consumption site close to your kids' school and having people doing their drugs in the open near your kids' school and leaving their used needles lying on the playground, which are you going to pick?

SCS

Often, these places are where they are because that's where their clients already are.

Are they? Or is it just close enough the areas where underfunded volunteer organisations are able to get a physical site.

You may also want to measure out the radius of 200m from every school or daycare in your town or city on a map and see how many places are left where they can park SCSs.

This is neighborhood dependant. Somewhere like Sud-ouest in MontrΓ©al? Impossible. Somewhere like a Kingston suburb, a lot of real estate.

But that's a great point, allow me to rephrase, the SCS sites should be an appropriate safe distance from schools; what that distance is is going to vary greatly between neighborhoods and their densities; and even the day trip programming of these schools (as an example if daycare always does their walks north to a canal which has playgrounds, then a SCS any distance along that route isn't great, but a site to the south could be super close.

Figuring out where they'll do more good than harm is more important than enforcing arbitrary limits.

Agreed, but this needs to be looked at holistically, not solely for the clients. That requires understanding the communities these sites are going into, and funding sites appropriately so selection isn't based on funding.

[–] Gnumile@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Have their been reports or stories of these drug users harming children or doing drugs in the school yard rather than the safe consumption sites? Honest question, I don't know the answer.

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

In Kingston, I've heard to janitorial staff needing to clear needles and remove tresspassers off the grounds at the boys & girls club, and a school that are the closest to the SCSs. I don't know how the volume of cleaning compares to schools farther away from the SCS. My data is also hearsy, but comes from someone who works with the community.

I'll also say Kingston concentrates support services geographically, which leads to concentrations of people using these services geographically. This is something I didn't see in other cities where services are more spread out around.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

volunteer organisations

what are you referring to as a "volunteer" organisation?

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

All of these organizations: https://ohrn.org/meet-our-networks/

Some are publicly owned, most aren't, none of them are provincial.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh I see, you mean the government farms out most social services. Just to be clear, the staff working the SCSs are not volunteers, nor anyone above them, but I don't think you meant that.

[–] Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, I mean to say the organizations are volunteering to fill this health requirement. I think there was a long in translation theirs.

[–] yes_this_time@lemmy.world -4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What about a third choice of confiscating their very dangerous drugs?

Or a fourth choice of putting them in a drunk/drug tank for 24 hour hold with optional invite to a treatment center? I get it's certainly not ideal to use force on people.

Why is thinking of the children not valid? Certainly they have some right to be able to walk around their neighborhood without fear.

[–] CalPal@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Confiscating their drugs, forcible confinement... you serious? They'll just get more when they get the chance; they're addicts, and there are markets for them to find drugs, there's no easy way of stopping addicts from getting what they need. Confiscating or 24 hour confinement just ends the immediate risk of use, there's no saying that won't stop them from getting another hit by the next day (or even guarantee that they haven't already used it by the time they're confiscated / confined).

You're advocating for punishing people effectively for being poor and addicted to drugs. That's kind of a fucked up opinion, and opening SCSs does not mean you aren't thinking of the children - it's also keeping addicts off the streets and away from exposing that lifestyle to children, but on a more humane and practical level.

[–] yes_this_time@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, confiscation of illegal and dangerous substances and drunk tank for public intoxication. Why is this outlandish?

If I go through an airport I'm frisked and water can be confiscated. Open liquor at a beach can be confiscated.

If I get drunk to the point I'm out of control I can be placed a drunk tank.

Crystal Meth, fentenyl etc... are very dangerous drugs. And people on these drugs are very antisocial.

You may just be saying that those policies won't help an addict. Addicts have different profiles and so would behave differently. Having consequences on actions would be helpful for some.

Conversely, a complete laissez faire attitude is propelling addiction for some. We are implicitly condoning their behavior.

It's OK for there to be consequences to an addicts behavior, while also providing more support.

Their behavior disproportionately impacts the poor. Consider addicts tend to poorer neighborhoods, but only a very small portion of the neighbourhood are addicts. And it's the poorer families who can't use their parks, or have their kids run to the corner store or maybe even play outside. Their public amenities are trashed, and local funding doesn't go as far. The normalization and access to drugs is certainly not helpful either.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I feel like if there are people shooting up in your schoolyard, then you really need a SCS within 200m.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world -4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The whole point is to move them somewhere safe to consume, for both the users and the public. Drugs can be pretty bad and make people do some bad things, from crimes to indecency. We dont need people fighting each other near schools, we dont need people relieving themselves in bushes near schools.

[–] Girru00@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Did they not initially choose the sites near where there were the most problems. Like they said, if there are users doing it around the school, would you want to build a site there and have it contained, or build a site 2km away that doesnt reduce users near the school as much?

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world -5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The difference between 200m and 2km is 10x. 200m feels very close, closer than many places will even place their bus stops to each other. Something along the lines of 500m-1km away from schools seems more reasonable IMO.

Drug users loiter and use drugs where they can get away with it. With proper resources provided elsewhere many will go there instead of shooting up in the school yard, the ones that linger and become problematic can be relocated to treatment sites by law enforcement and site staff.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

You're contradicting yourself and you are clearly not speaking from an informed point of view.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I think you might be underestimating how large a distance 200m exclusion covers. It effectively makes it impossible to build these sites anywhere in the suburbs. One of these sites in an industrial complex is kinda useless. Consider that a school's grounds can be quite large, maybe 200m^2, which means that the exclusion zone is actually more like 600m^2 around the center of the school (anyone who has played a grid based ttrpg with different sized creatures is familiar with this idea). In Ontario we can have up to 8 schools per community (french&English, primary&secondary, catholic&public) and remember this applies to more places than just schools. The type of place that makes a good school and a good safe injection site are also quite similar (cheap land, high population density, access to public transit and major roads etc)

Also keep in mind that the process to get these drug sites is already very involved, you can't just plop them down. Existing rules requires a lengthy public appeal process, a process that takes into account proximity to schools. But unlike ham fisted rules like these it can take into account the specific realities of that site through a democratic process. For instance, if you have to cross a highway and a fenced private property to reach the school then they aren't going to interact much even if they fit within some arbitrary circle.

I live next to a safe drug site (that will have to close over this, its 195m away) . I can say very definitively that this community is far safer with this site then without. It greatly reduces the number of high people on the streets and the number of needles on the ground. Most importantly far less ambulances.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The whole point is to move them somewhere safe to consume

That's just not correct. The point of SCSs is not to make life easier for people who are disgusted and inconvenienced by other people's addiction and drug use. It is to prevent death. Period. Everything else, like this 200m rule, is a compromise against that goal. It literally costs lives to move these sites away from where they are needed just because other people want to try to encourage the drug users already in their area to move elsewhere. That is so clearly not the point.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

And to prevent incorrect disposal of paraphernalia. And to offer help to drug addicts so they eventually quit their addiction and quit having to shoot up near schools.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

No. Those are things that it would be nice to do, but they are not critical, they are not the point, they are incidental. It is not worth sacrificing human lives so that people don't have to see needles, clearly if there is a choice that has to be made, the point of this is to save the life. It is not worth sacrificing human lives to shuffle people around and make them shoot up where you're okay with them shooting up. You are not that important. This is a public health measure, to prevent people from fucking dying. I don't know why you want to resist seeing it in those terms.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Oh no absolutely I agree with you, they are human beings and deserve love and help, I'm just coming down to the other user's level of not caring for others and only caring about "what's in it for me".

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Didn't notice that the speaker had changed, sorry

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

Hah no worries, gets hectic in Lemmy comments πŸ˜‚