The words 'harm reduction' sounds rational, in that if you accept that drug addition will always exist (like prostitution) then via a series of social/mathematical equations, there is an optimized set of policies that reduce the overall 'harm' to 'society' (and the collection of individuals of which it is comprised). It sounds like an optimization problem. The problem is, the people behind these ideas are not rational at all, they are completely ideological, and these 'harm reduction' strategies are madness and magical thinking.
So many good points made here, so much to think about. Seems the boosters of "harm reduction" are in league with the folks who couldn't see the obvious harm of the lockdowns. Rather than accept the obvious impact of what was being done, they spun what they saw to fit a narrative that distorted what was really going on. A simple enough analogy to the harm reduction concept: look at any movie from the 50s and 60s and see how many smoked cigarettes, how smoking was made to seem attractive and "normal". When did that stop? When the narrative was changed to include the reality of the harm cigarettes were doing and steps taken to reduce consumption despite corporate push for use/profits. Cigarettes were made to seem less attractive, less available, less socially acceptable.
Again, thank you, for shedding light and dialogue into the 'harm reduction' issue. This thing has more tenacles than an octopus. So many are 'taken in' by the words 'safe' - oh goodness just look at the 'safe and effective' jab they kept rallying for. This is another avenue. I really think when you make things so easy for people, they don't need to think. Ahh, could that be the motive? We are in a mess and who can possibly look at our governments, people like Bonnie Henry, or those advocating for more of these sites, without asking why and how are they benefitting anyone, especially the addicts?. Where I live, these 'tent' cities are alive and well and creating a monstrous outcome. In Belleville, ON this week, 14 OD's within 1 hour alone. Yeah, these safe injection sites are just peachy. :(
Great article doc...I remember, maybe 10 years ago, watching a program that featured three addicts (I believe it was a John Hopkins study) who were addicted for many years to various substances (heroine, alcohol, tobacco) and they did a controlled study with each participant with psilocybin mushrooms. The result with one application was each participant lost/overcame their addiction. This amazed me. I never heard another word on it.
Thank you for the honest and brave words. Living in BC has been very frustrating, to say the least. It seems common sense has been left behind from the very people who should be aware of the damage they are doing. I don’t believe our leaders, political or health, want anyone to get off the drugs. I have an estranged son whose life is being destroyed by addiction. There are too many lives being destroyed by these harmful policies.
Thank you for drawing attention to this lunacy. It is striking that safer supply, like pretty much all of Canada’s problems at this point, is a self-inflicted wound caused by leftist politics.
Also striking that the claim to be evidence-based, it is yet another situation where leftists are immune to evidence and reason. Instead of engaging with critics, we get patronizing lectures on our moral and intellectual failings. And of course these idiotic policies are universally supported by the bureaucracy and legal system.
I have little hope left for this country. It is too stupid to survive.
Imagine the Inca’s saying “I know the weather was bad this year and the crop yields were terrible, but it would have been so much worse if we hadn’t sacrificed all those virgins on the mountaintop, in order to appease the Gods!”
Modern translation: “I know the drug crisis is bad and overdose deaths are rising, but it would have been so much worse if we hadn’t been handing out opioids like candy, sacrificing a whole group of drug virgins to appease Big Pharma and Public Health!”
As you say, if the strategy was working, things would be improving by some objective measure, but things are not improving. The places with the most liberal drug policies (including harm reduction) are the places with the biggest problems, so the correlation is there.
The zealots will argue that “desperate times call for desperate measures” (ie the drug crisis was there first and the crazy policies were a logical response) and then argue for even more desperate measures. They admit they have no evidence, but then say they are “following the science” - we’ve heard that before!
The realists will point out that the zealots are fuelling the fire and fanning the flames. We need more scholarly articles showing the harms of safer supply, etc. Good luck getting those funded or published! Thank goodness we have people like Adam Zivo leading the charge to get it out there in the public domain.
Bravo! And I will find time to check out the other things you have referenced. The bottom line is that this madness to anyone with an ounce of common sense is just more neo-marxist social deconstruction. As with other nonsenses, many of the foot soldiers may think it's all wonderful. Those behind it are trying to destroy our society.
Our addiction problems have been festering for decades and have several root causes. The misery on the native reserves, the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs, automation in the natural resource industries, failure to provide foster kids support when they aged out of the system, relaxing penalties for criminal behaviour, closing the mental hospitals, shutting down the building of public housing and the loss of small affordable private housing all added to our present addictions problems.
I would add in two other issues. The long open border with the United States means that we can not keep out imported drugs.
I am surprised that we do not seem to realize that Canada is no longer such a rich country. Slowly but steadily, our working class has been getting poorer. Many now work two jobs; some three. In the late 1960's a minimum wage job would pay the rent on a room or a basement apartment, allow you to buy a used car and still have a little spending money. Not any more.
We haven't the means or the will to fix all of this. Instead, our different levels of government realizes that it is cheaper to let the addicts be and pay the Harm Reduction NGOs to "handle" this problem on our behalf. Want a few more millions of dollars? Sure thing, here is a cheque.
Take a good look at Food Banks. A temporary measure that was started 70 years ago and has never been fixed.
Portugal and Scandinavia don't have the answers to our drug problems. I wrote an essay on who did successfully take on addictions.
Well written and convincing again! Having made the argument now, does part 5 offer meaningful, attainable solutions? It’s all too easy to retrospectively disparage the efforts of well-meaning professionals, and while that’s an important part of quality improvement, I think it’s then important to offer attainable solutions. A gradual phasing out of harm reduction would only work with alternatives that are attractive to human nature for buy-in. Addiction is a complex beast! There is a dearth of high quality research on this issue—a lot of conflating variables. I might suggest better early education about this subject in schools, to provide kids with emphasis about the importance of, and the right tools for, healthy self-care practices. Also, maybe look towards successful policies in other jurisdictions, such as Portugal and Scandinavia.
Just to play devil’s advocate, I did find a study that appears reasonably well done, in support of OAT…
Lindsay A Pearce et al. BMJ. 2020
And there is the issue of abstinence based opioid strategies in treatment centres leading to rapid mortality upon release. Vincent Lam’s newest book “On The Ravine” alludes to this. It’s by no means scientific, but it is a lovely commentary illustrating the difficulties and intricacies of being on the frontlines of opioid treatment in Toronto, written by one who does exactly this.
Wow this article is bang on! We need change ND what government is going to do it. That will be my question when anybody knocks on my door . Thank you for this information and confirming my own beliefs.
By coincidence, this article dropped about 6 hours after I published this: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/np-view-the-safer-supply-farce-is-unravelling
You people are frigging brilliant.
The words 'harm reduction' sounds rational, in that if you accept that drug addition will always exist (like prostitution) then via a series of social/mathematical equations, there is an optimized set of policies that reduce the overall 'harm' to 'society' (and the collection of individuals of which it is comprised). It sounds like an optimization problem. The problem is, the people behind these ideas are not rational at all, they are completely ideological, and these 'harm reduction' strategies are madness and magical thinking.
So many good points made here, so much to think about. Seems the boosters of "harm reduction" are in league with the folks who couldn't see the obvious harm of the lockdowns. Rather than accept the obvious impact of what was being done, they spun what they saw to fit a narrative that distorted what was really going on. A simple enough analogy to the harm reduction concept: look at any movie from the 50s and 60s and see how many smoked cigarettes, how smoking was made to seem attractive and "normal". When did that stop? When the narrative was changed to include the reality of the harm cigarettes were doing and steps taken to reduce consumption despite corporate push for use/profits. Cigarettes were made to seem less attractive, less available, less socially acceptable.
Again, thank you, for shedding light and dialogue into the 'harm reduction' issue. This thing has more tenacles than an octopus. So many are 'taken in' by the words 'safe' - oh goodness just look at the 'safe and effective' jab they kept rallying for. This is another avenue. I really think when you make things so easy for people, they don't need to think. Ahh, could that be the motive? We are in a mess and who can possibly look at our governments, people like Bonnie Henry, or those advocating for more of these sites, without asking why and how are they benefitting anyone, especially the addicts?. Where I live, these 'tent' cities are alive and well and creating a monstrous outcome. In Belleville, ON this week, 14 OD's within 1 hour alone. Yeah, these safe injection sites are just peachy. :(
I found this series to be exceptionally insightful and persuasive. Excellent work! Thank you for sharing such compelling content.
Great series! Thank you 👍🏻
Great article doc...I remember, maybe 10 years ago, watching a program that featured three addicts (I believe it was a John Hopkins study) who were addicted for many years to various substances (heroine, alcohol, tobacco) and they did a controlled study with each participant with psilocybin mushrooms. The result with one application was each participant lost/overcame their addiction. This amazed me. I never heard another word on it.
Thank you for the honest and brave words. Living in BC has been very frustrating, to say the least. It seems common sense has been left behind from the very people who should be aware of the damage they are doing. I don’t believe our leaders, political or health, want anyone to get off the drugs. I have an estranged son whose life is being destroyed by addiction. There are too many lives being destroyed by these harmful policies.
Thank you for drawing attention to this lunacy. It is striking that safer supply, like pretty much all of Canada’s problems at this point, is a self-inflicted wound caused by leftist politics.
Also striking that the claim to be evidence-based, it is yet another situation where leftists are immune to evidence and reason. Instead of engaging with critics, we get patronizing lectures on our moral and intellectual failings. And of course these idiotic policies are universally supported by the bureaucracy and legal system.
I have little hope left for this country. It is too stupid to survive.
Imagine the Inca’s saying “I know the weather was bad this year and the crop yields were terrible, but it would have been so much worse if we hadn’t sacrificed all those virgins on the mountaintop, in order to appease the Gods!”
Modern translation: “I know the drug crisis is bad and overdose deaths are rising, but it would have been so much worse if we hadn’t been handing out opioids like candy, sacrificing a whole group of drug virgins to appease Big Pharma and Public Health!”
As you say, if the strategy was working, things would be improving by some objective measure, but things are not improving. The places with the most liberal drug policies (including harm reduction) are the places with the biggest problems, so the correlation is there.
The zealots will argue that “desperate times call for desperate measures” (ie the drug crisis was there first and the crazy policies were a logical response) and then argue for even more desperate measures. They admit they have no evidence, but then say they are “following the science” - we’ve heard that before!
The realists will point out that the zealots are fuelling the fire and fanning the flames. We need more scholarly articles showing the harms of safer supply, etc. Good luck getting those funded or published! Thank goodness we have people like Adam Zivo leading the charge to get it out there in the public domain.
Thank you for this series.
I’m in the music business and, therefore, know a lot of people who have pulled themselves out of addiction and many who have died because they didn’t.
Most who didn’t make it, even after getting sober, fell because it was too easy to get the drugs.
How can anyone think making it easier to get drugs helps?
I feel there must be money to be made in this so it persists
Bravo! And I will find time to check out the other things you have referenced. The bottom line is that this madness to anyone with an ounce of common sense is just more neo-marxist social deconstruction. As with other nonsenses, many of the foot soldiers may think it's all wonderful. Those behind it are trying to destroy our society.
Our addiction problems have been festering for decades and have several root causes. The misery on the native reserves, the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs, automation in the natural resource industries, failure to provide foster kids support when they aged out of the system, relaxing penalties for criminal behaviour, closing the mental hospitals, shutting down the building of public housing and the loss of small affordable private housing all added to our present addictions problems.
I would add in two other issues. The long open border with the United States means that we can not keep out imported drugs.
I am surprised that we do not seem to realize that Canada is no longer such a rich country. Slowly but steadily, our working class has been getting poorer. Many now work two jobs; some three. In the late 1960's a minimum wage job would pay the rent on a room or a basement apartment, allow you to buy a used car and still have a little spending money. Not any more.
We haven't the means or the will to fix all of this. Instead, our different levels of government realizes that it is cheaper to let the addicts be and pay the Harm Reduction NGOs to "handle" this problem on our behalf. Want a few more millions of dollars? Sure thing, here is a cheque.
Take a good look at Food Banks. A temporary measure that was started 70 years ago and has never been fixed.
Portugal and Scandinavia don't have the answers to our drug problems. I wrote an essay on who did successfully take on addictions.
https://hollandmarshall.substack.com/p/solving-the-addictions-crisis
Well written and convincing again! Having made the argument now, does part 5 offer meaningful, attainable solutions? It’s all too easy to retrospectively disparage the efforts of well-meaning professionals, and while that’s an important part of quality improvement, I think it’s then important to offer attainable solutions. A gradual phasing out of harm reduction would only work with alternatives that are attractive to human nature for buy-in. Addiction is a complex beast! There is a dearth of high quality research on this issue—a lot of conflating variables. I might suggest better early education about this subject in schools, to provide kids with emphasis about the importance of, and the right tools for, healthy self-care practices. Also, maybe look towards successful policies in other jurisdictions, such as Portugal and Scandinavia.
Just to play devil’s advocate, I did find a study that appears reasonably well done, in support of OAT…
Lindsay A Pearce et al. BMJ. 2020
And there is the issue of abstinence based opioid strategies in treatment centres leading to rapid mortality upon release. Vincent Lam’s newest book “On The Ravine” alludes to this. It’s by no means scientific, but it is a lovely commentary illustrating the difficulties and intricacies of being on the frontlines of opioid treatment in Toronto, written by one who does exactly this.
Wow this article is bang on! We need change ND what government is going to do it. That will be my question when anybody knocks on my door . Thank you for this information and confirming my own beliefs.