Safe Injection Site Truths

Our friend Steve has added this comment today. I thought it was so direct and simple and accurate it warranted a separate post of its own lest anyone miss it.

Things the SIS has done:

Directly cost an enormous amount of money (about $15 million so far).

Increased the load on the health care system, sometimes preventing other patients from getting care. The costs of this are incalculable.

Helped thousands of addicts to continue their addictive behaviour.

Created the perception that mind-altering drugs are more or less harmless.

Things the SIS has NOT done:

Reduce the prevalence of HIV or HepC.

Reduce the overdose death statistics.Improve the public order or crime situation.

Directly help a single addict to get off drugs.

Oh yes, one more thing the SIS HAS done:

Lied about its results.

Stand Back! I'm Being Hoovered!

Today's very impotant science revelation is that, for us older men, sex is just like vacuuming.

Except with a longer hose.

200 TV News Jobs Lost at Canwest Global

It was only last Saturday that I wrote here about Big Media getting bigger by swallowing more outlets.

Today, we have hidden away on page C2 of the Canwest Global Sun newspaper a little item revealing that The Corporation has cut 200 jobs in the TV news departments as they digitize and standardize local operations.

News now enters The Lord of the Rings arena. Great.

Have a Look at Care Homes - If You Dare

BC's Health Minister has rejected NDP leader Caorl James' call for a serious look at all seniors care home operated by a company called Retirement Concepts.

That's too bad.

My personal experience suggest that we need a serious and ongoing and vigilant look at ALL seniors "care" facilities.

The lack of care at so many of these places is a 7-hour movie unto itself.

Violent A-Hole Needs Psych Workup

A violent man who shoots people and beats them up and kicks them and who has been doing this for many years is before the courts.

The court has ordered a psychiatric evaluation.

Here's one for free.

He's a violent felon who shoots people and beats them up.

Protect the public.

Send him to prison for a long time.

You're welcome. Call anytime.

ADDICTIONS ARE MAKING ME SICK ALREADY

CONFESSION:

I am boring myself talking incessantly about addictions.

But what can you do? Today, the press is filled with it all.

So...

A quick summary:

Our friend, Robert Werner sent us the link to a late afternoon Globe and Mail piece on Harper's announcement about his new drug strategy. You can read that here.

But the best quote from Harper follows:

"I remain a skeptic that you can tell people that we won't stop the drug trade, we won't get you off drugs, we won't even send messages to discourage drug use but somehow we will keep you addicted but reduce the harm just the same," Mr. Harper said of the Insite program. "If you remain a drug addict, I don't care how much harm you reduce, you are going to have a short and miserable life."

So, Harper's program may or may not play out in any useful fashion, but HE HAS THE CLEAREST AND BEST PERCEPTION OF THE ISSUE OF ANY POLITICIAN IN CANADA TODAY.

The Sun's shrieking editorial and the articles in the paper today, quoting all the "stakeholders" are pathetic. The junk science people keep trotting out their fantasy that Insite leads addicts to seek treatment. The VANDU ghouls just want more free drugs and more free needles, even thought tax-paying citizens who raise families can not get free drugs and free needles for diseases the haven't actively pursued.

The best thing said about all this in the press today - other than Harper's welcome statements - came from a letter to the editor.

Here it is in its entirety:

Appeasing addicts hastens social decay

Letter Published: Friday, October 05, 2007

I did not find Frances Bula's so- called balanced article about Insite very informative. It had the same tired arguments applauding the success of keeping criminal addicts alive so that they can continue to steal and inject poison into their arms.

Every addict knows there can never be enough drugs or supervised injection sites to appease the addiction. Evidence of this is all around us as Vancouver's social decay continues uninterrupted.

If this is called success (after four years), I shudder to think what failure would have looked like.

Patti Milsom

Marion Jones Confesses her Steroid Use

Marion Jones won 3 gold and 2 bronze medals in the Summer Olympics in Australia in 2000.

Today, she stands before us disgraced, having admitted to being a steroid user.

Read the story here.

Then, if the civic strike ends on time, attend THE LANGARA DIALOGUES at the Vancouver Public Library on Wednesday, Oct. 17th at 7:30pm, where the topic in a formal debate will be:

"RESOLVED: SPORTS ACHIEVEMENT REQUIRES PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES."

War Creep Ramsfeld Appointed to Stanford

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the great war criminals of the modern age, has been appointed to the Hoover Institute, a think tank at Stanford University.

The uproar from faculty and students alike has been huge.

The day after the American troops arrived in Baghdad, about 20 generals told Rimsfeld that he was now facing an insurrection. He told them that they were all wrong, that he knew better and that this was just "looting."

Read the CNN story here.