I’m not too squeamish too say I’ve wished death on junkies. Death as a policy outcome for junkies? There’s something to be said. Death can be a release, and it has a way of stopping the spread of a contagion. People that get others hooked? There’re tickets to be punched, for sure.
Still, yes, I’m saying Insite’s a good thing. It’s not like without that place there’d be no junkies, right? Let’s restrict our attention to people that aren’t junkies. Let’s talk about how the public and their government are going to be dealing with those same junkies if you have your way and there is nothing like Insite. There’ll be people attacked, mugged and robbed by dope-sick fiends, and emergency responders from cops to paramedics to hospitals and coroners to deal with them. There’ll be police departments, uniformed and undercover officers, making street-level drug arrests or even mid-level raids yet never managing to staunch the flow of opiates, which exists and is protected on some very exalted planes in our society. There’ll be district attorneys and courts and prisons, prosecuting cases, imprisoning offenders, and corrections officers overseeing government-run shooting galleries anyway as somehow, prisons are no less awash in smack and oxy than our streets. There’ll be neighborhoods, cities and towns full of bystanders and family members and a wary public like you that wants something done, but knows rationally if they think about it that none of what’s being done is working. Honest education, access to contraception and basic medical care are the most basic elements of family planning, and there are parallels for heroin users, prostitution, homelessness and the mentally ill. There will be costs, whether you deal with an issue or choose to ignore it. Programs like Insite lower those costs.
A government needle in their arm? A clean needle, you mean? There are worse things in this world.
I’m not too squeamish too say I’ve wished death on junkies. Death as a policy outcome for junkies? There’s something to be said. Death can be a release, and it has a way of stopping the spread of a contagion. People that get others hooked? There’re tickets to be punched, for sure.
Still, yes, I’m saying Insite’s a good thing. It’s not like without that place there’d be no junkies, right? Let’s restrict our attention to people that aren’t junkies. Let’s talk about how the public and their government are going to be dealing with those same junkies if you have your way and there is nothing like Insite. There’ll be people attacked, mugged and robbed by dope-sick fiends, and emergency responders from cops to paramedics to hospitals and coroners to deal with them. There’ll be police departments, uniformed and undercover officers, making street-level drug arrests or even mid-level raids yet never managing to staunch the flow of opiates, which exists and is protected on some very exalted planes in our society. There’ll be district attorneys and courts and prisons, prosecuting cases, imprisoning offenders, and corrections officers overseeing government-run shooting galleries anyway as somehow, prisons are no less awash in smack and oxy than our streets. There’ll be neighborhoods, cities and towns full of bystanders and family members and a wary public like you that wants something done, but knows rationally if they think about it that none of what’s being done is working. Honest education, access to contraception and basic medical care are the most basic elements of family planning, and there are parallels for heroin users, prostitution, homelessness and the mentally ill. There will be costs, whether you deal with an issue or choose to ignore it. Programs like Insite lower those costs.
A government needle in their arm? A clean needle, you mean? There are worse things in this world.