The Final Solution to the Drug Addict Problem?

Get a load of this anonymous scumbag- I found him in the comment section of my local newspaper's website:

 Drug addicts should be separated from everyone else. Put them in a community within a reasonable distance of the rest of civilization and treat them there until they are able to function "normally" and can be trusted to be decent members society. Doesn't the government pay for their housing one way or another anyways? I can say this because I have seen how a druggie has ruined themselves and caused pain to their family for decades.Now they continue to be a burden on their family AND the health system, as they are constantly in and out of the hospital. Since the government won't help or think of new ways to tackle this problem, even when they get out of rehab, there's no place to go but back to the gov housing full of other druggies!

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2010/11/14/16139171-lfp.html?comments_page=3&id=16139171 

As I've said before it seems that in London Ontario, the one group of people you can say anything about is drug addicts - specifically those people who are on methadone.

I found this person's 'final solution to the drug addict problem' beneath an article concerning the methadone clinic ban.  The most heinous suggestions can be made and the most egregious lies can be told about those people, to the point of calling for their removal from our society.

Who else could you suggest building concentration camps for and yet face no rebuttal? 

Just to see how it reads, let's substitute in some other groups and see how this scumbag's suggestion comes across. Then we can use our political correctness indoctrination to help us imagine whether or not a rebuttal would be forthcoming:

Natives should be separated from everyone else. Put them in a community within a reasonable distance of the rest of civilization and treat them there until they are able to function "normally" and can be trusted to be decent members society. Doesn't the government pay for their housing one way or another anyways? I can say this because I have seen how a native has ruined themselves and caused pain to their community for decades.Now they continue to be a burden on their family AND the health system, as they are constantly in and out of the hospital. Since the government won't help or think of new ways to tackle this problem, even when they get out of rehab and jail, there's no place to go but back to the gov housing full of other Natives!

Let's go with immigrants:

Immigrants should be separated from everyone else. Put them in a community within a reasonable distance of the rest of civilization and treat them there until they are able to function "normally" and can be trusted to be decent members society. Doesn't the government pay for their housing one way or another anyways? I can say this because I have seen how immigrants have ruined themselves and caused pain to this country for decades.Now they continue to be a burden on their family AND the health system, as they are constantly in and out of the hospital. Since the government won't help or think of new ways to tackle this problem, even when they become citizens, there's no place to go but back to the gov housing full of other immigrants!

I wonder if the Human Rights Commission in Ontario handles hate speech against drug addicts.

If calling for addicts to be isolated from civilization is not hate speech, then what does constitute hate speech against drug addicts?

Something to think about...

There are roughly 1400 Londoners who are currently on methadone. There are probably far more drug-addicted Londoners who are not on any such recovery program at all.

This post will deal with the roughly 1400 Londoners who are methadone patients.

Let us imagine for a moment that there are no methadone clinics in this city.  In this London there are 1400 more contributors to the black market. In this London, having 1400 more addicts on illegal drugs is viewed as somehow being morally superior to having 1400 patients on methadone.

These imaginary Londoners are addicted an of average 200 mg illegal opiate narcotic per day, which they purchase for about fifty cents a milligram.  Some work to get the money for their drugs, others lie cheat, steal and prostitute themselves - and for the most part they commit these crimes in the city, not having the courtesy to commit them elsewhere.

In this imaginary London, drug dealers earn on average $36-48 million dollars more each year than the drug dealer's in the real London.  The $7000 that those 1400 methadone patients would have spend on their daily medicine goes into the pockets of the dealers to the tune of $100 000 - $140 000 more per day. With the methadone clinics gone from the city, the savvier out-of-town dealer's know that they are 'the only option' for addicts.  More of them come to London, where legal competition is nonexistent.

The dealers take advantage of areas where the poor congregate, so the removal of the city's methadone clinics had no benefit in that regard; the addicts still congregate to these areas and they do so in greater numbers - the dealers followed.  Letters to the editor in the local paper of this imagined London speak about 'banning coffee shops' to deny the drug dealers the opportunity to 'take advantage of the downtrodden'.  Others say that this is too extreme and that places which feed the homeless should only be banned from being 'close to schools and playgrounds - think of the children'.

A vocal minority want methadone clinics back, alleging some connection between their absence and 'the increase in drug-related crime' - but they are usually rebutted with the irrefutable rock-solid logic that says 'drugs are bad therefore giving drugs to addicts is also bad and we shouldn't do it no matter the consequences'; the consequences being an increase in drug-crime.  A product of the finest minds on the local internet comment boards, this argument is viewed as irrefutable. And the city's dealers love that.

Fortunately our London - the real London - denies those drug dealers access to those millions in potential profit in by allowing methadone clinics in the city. The real London has methadone clinics that keep at least $36 million out of the coffers of criminals every year, and which do so whilst helping people recover from devastating opiate addiction. In this light, allowing more methadone clinics to be built seems like the logical thing to do.

In our London, you and I and 'the children' are less likely to be a victim of a crime than in the imagined one, where methadone clinics don't exist.  So as much as some of us might not like the sight of them, maybe we ought to appreciate having these clinics around.

Just something to think about.

Is it safe or unsafe? Jonathan Sher on SoHo

London Free Press reporter Jonathan Sher Reports:

London's SoHo -- which stretches from Adelaide to Clarence and Horton streets to the Thames River -- may be the city's biggest challenge and opportunity. It's a working class neighbourhood that's struggled with street crime and the prospect of a methadone clinic -- but also has riverfront property that could be developed when South Street Hospital closes. Its former leader has left out of concern for her children. Her replacement says such concerns are overblown. Here are their stories:
--- --- ---
IT'S SAFE
To those who claim only gritty neighbourhoods such as SoHo have problems with drug addicts and dealers, Mark Woodward says this: “Your cocaine drives around in a BMW.”
Born in SoHo 50 years ago, Woodward has spent most of his life there, including the past two decades. In the last year he’s become the leader of the neighbourhood community group, taking the reins after Marie Claire Bylik left.
He knows some in the community complain about feeling unsafe and tell stories about drug dealers running amuck and break-ins being rampant.
But he doesn’t buy it.
“It doesn’t happen nearly as often as hysterical people would lead you to believe,” he said. “It’s not any more dangerous than any place in London.”
Woodward says he’s taking the community group in a different direction than Bylik, who stressed the artistic potential of the neighbourhood and helped organize events that celebrated local artists.
“She was trying to turn it into Wortley Village,” he said.

Londoner's telling tales to disparage methadone patients, say it ain't so. 

Londoner's would never do that.  I've never seen a Londoner resort to hyperbole and lies when discussing methadone clinics, that would never happen.  No way. Except when it Does.

Political addiction

Western Journalism's Project London Reports:

When David Winninger cast his final vote as a city councillor, he knew he would lose.
Still he voted against enacting a one-year ban on new methadone clinics in London.
“I was definitely opposed to it because the people who take methadone, who are prescribed methadone, are trying to deal with their opiod dependency and that's the kind of medicine they need, in many cases, every day of the week,” said the former Ward 11 councillor.
Despite the potential benefits, councillors and communities alike are hesitant to approve a new clinic. City council finds itself in political hot water as attempts to improve methadone distribution clash with the ‘not in my backyard’ philosophy of citizens.

 Mayor Joe Fontana said “It will always come down to that 'not in my back yard' issue (…) We wanted to make sure that that we had our policy in place first, so we had to impose that development freeze.”
He thinks location is the biggest political issue the city faces when it comes to methadone treatment.
Fontana said he is in favour of  a dispersal strategy which will ensure that treatment facilities are not concentrated in one particular area.
Andrew Sancton, a politics professor and expert on municipal government at the University of Western Ontario said the city may need clinics, but if a councillor were to actively promote a methadone clinic in their own ward, "that would be pretty close to political suicide."

Doctor Martyn Judson, from Clinic 528 comments on the ban:

Dr. Martyn Judson, medical director of Clinic 528, said methadone is an effective way to treat addiction and ultimately reduces crime, gets women off the street.
"We've taken the clinic to where patients are situated and where they need us."
Judson said the community’s aversion and fears of methadone clinics are unfounded.
“It really stems from the attitude of 'not in my back yard.' Everybody (will) recognize it’s an issue and something needs to be done about it, but no one’s prepared to sacrifice any location near where they reside or work to be an area where a clinic could be situated.”
He thinks that the moratorium is just buying the city some time to set unnecessary guidelines for methadone clinics.
“Clinics are already regulated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons so we don’t need another body to tell us what we can do,” he said.

There are some informative links at the article location. They have facts, figures and information about the laws regarding methadone dispensing. A profile on the OATC (The Ontario Addiction Treatment Centre) is also available -  the OATC are largest clinic network in the province. 
See the article in its entirety:

 Political addiction | Public and private interests clash in the battle to improve methadone treatment

Strangled With Red Tape Outside Socialist Hospital

Moonbattery reports:

If you’re going to have an asthma attack, be sure not to do it in front of a hospital — at least not in a country with socialized medicine. Once again Britain lights to the way into our bleak collectivist future:

A student lay dying from an asthma attack outside a hospital after A&E [accident &emergency] staff refused to summon help, telling her friend to ring for an ambulance instead.
Melody Davis, 20, had been driven to casualty but her friends got stuck behind a barrier to a staff car park.
One of Miss Davis’s friends ran 150 yards into the A&E department and asked a receptionist to summon help.
She was told she would have to dial 999 for an ambulance if she wanted emergency treatment.
The staff member refused to place the call and told the friend to use a phone in the reception area.

Rules are rules. The all-pervasive bureaucracy implicit in socialism reduces people to automatons who exist to obey them, oblivious to common sense.

By the time she returned to the car several minutes later, the Liverpool University student had collapsed and another friend was trying to resuscitate her.

Eventually the proper forms must have been filled out and the mandatory protocol complied with, because Miss Davis was finally taken into the hospital, where she died free of charge, compliments of socialized medicine.




To be fair,This death-by-policy- also happens in the USA:

PORTLAND – An injured man who had just crashed his car in a hospital parking lot was forced to wait for an ambulance because of hospital procedure, Portland police said.

Investigators said 61-year-old Birgilio Marin-Fuentes died afterward from cardiac complications.
An officer who had been investigating a possible DUII near Portland Adventist Hospital was flagged down early Thursday morning by someone who had just witnessed the crash.
The witness told the officer a man had just crashed his car into a light pole in the hospital parking lot, according to Sgt. Pete Simpson.
The officer responded to the crash scene and found Marin-Fuentes unresponsive. Simpson said the driver had apparently suffered a medical condition not associated with the crash.
Adventist spokeswoman Judy Lindsay Leach said the charge nurse directed a paramedic to go immediately to the scene, then dispatched first responders.
The crash was approximately 100 yards from the hospital, but the victim could not be processed without following standard ambulance protocol.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41521922/?gt1=43001


If this behaviour starts becoming all the more common and accepted - perhaps some of those hospital receptionists could be replaced by a computer interface.  Machines are better at following protocol and rules and if that is all that is going to be expected of these people, perhaps money could be saved by using machines instead of having to pay people who behave like machines. At least no one will have to pay for counseling for these things when their inability to deviate from protocol results in a death.

It isn't like there wouldn't be humans around to help out, but it might help the hospital workers feel even less responsible if they had a machine they could wheel out on to tell people that their loved one is just going to have to call an ambulance from the hospital parking lot if they don't want to die - "it is policy". Maybe one day some union will demand it.

Anyhow, getting serious here:

I wonder if these cases ever result in punishment for the receptionist. I shall have to look into that, but one would think that they would not be punished if they adhered to the rules and policy of their hospital.

If so then this is a moral hazard of a sort, is it not?  It reminds me of some of the conclusions made after the Milgram experiments, particular insofar as obedience and responsibility are concerned.  Whereas in those experiments responsibility was - in the eyes of the subject - assumed by the experimenter, in this case responsibility is probably seen by the hospital workers to be assumed by policy and protocol.  They simply may not view themselves as responsible for anything else other than obeying the rules and obeying protocol. 

"the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow" - The Milgram Experiment:   A lesson in depravity, the power of authority, and peer pressure