Keys, phone, naloxone: In downtown Ottawa, the antidote to opioid overdoses has become an item some people won’t leave home without
Keys, phone, naloxone: In downtown Ottawa, the antidote to opioid overdoses has become an item some people won’t leave home without
St. Albans has become a bulwark against the rising tide of crisis in a neighbourhood overrun with addiction and homelessness, even supplying naloxone to paramedics when official supplies run low
Since the congregation took naloxone training in March, there’s been seven outside St. Albans. But that number is quite modest. At the drop-in centre beneath the church, where some of Ottawa’s most afflicted seek daytime refuge once the overnight shelters close, they’re doing at least one [naloxone application] a day.
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It's crazy that without these drugs these folks would all be willing to give up their life for a high.
I doubt it's a rational decision by the time they're addicted.
Sure, but people quit addictions all the time. Smoking is on a massive decline, drinking too. Somehow the drug that can kill you in an instant is so popular that churches are handing out kits to save them. Insanity.
Comparing nicotine addiction to opioid addiction is... Something.
Meh, opioid addiction is a waste of our time. We should let them figure it out themselves. They're all adults.
Who hurt you?
No one. Just tired of enabling the scourge of our society and disproportionately investing in people who elect to be a drain on us all. Destroying our downtowns and making everyone unsafe.
Yeah it's entirely the individuals fault and not a societal failing or anything. Every other country also has this problem for sure
Society made them do illegal drugs? Ohh boy I guess no one has any agency. We're all children and need the state to help us.
Ah yes and everyone who has stolen food is just evil and should be jailed because they didn't want to starve? Material conditions can substantial alter people's decision making. If youre stuck in the cycle of poverty knowing very well you aren't making it out, why not do hard drugs? You're never making it anywhere anyway.
Would you have said it was every individual Chinese person fault that they had an opium epidemic and not the British and Chinese administration for allowing the production and trade of opium to be so prevalent? Yes people have agency but if you trap someone in a box and put some heroin in it they'll do it eventually
Ah yes and everyone who has stolen food is just evil and should be jailed because they didn’t want to starve?
Ahh yes food and hard drugs are the same thing. Jesus give your head a shake. You don't need to do drugs.
If youre stuck in the cycle of poverty knowing very well you aren’t making it out, why not do hard drugs? You’re never making it anywhere anyway.
We are 14th in the world for mobility. So how do you figure you're stuck. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
You don't understand why people are addicted to drugs
I think you don't understand it. These people made a choice to start using drugs and got addicted. It sucks but they made that choice.
Not sure why the rest of society needs to pay for their shitty decisions.
Fundamentally, opioids are painkillers. Some of these people got hooked because their doctors prescribed them these drugs. Others may have been self-medicating for chronic physical pain. Are you blaming them for being in pain? There seems to be a physiological and genetic component to addiction—an inborn reason why some people get addicted to drugs or alcohol while others escape even if their circumstances are the same—that we're only beginning to explore. Are you blaming them for their ancestry? Still others get addicted because they needed mental health support while going through a bad patch and didn't get it. "Shitty decisions" are almost never the only factor in an addiction. Often, they're not even a significant one.
The rash of overdose deaths we've been seeing these past few years are due to the powers that be tightening controls on prescription-grade opioids, which have a known dosage per pill and seldom killed anyone even when being taken without a doctor's endorsement. Without the prescription pills, people who were already addicted were forced to turn to street drugs that can't be dosed properly because the purity varies from baggie to baggie. We've killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people as an unintended consequence of the War On (Some) Drugs—so yeah, this is society's fault.
I sincerely hope you never try opioids.
Yes, it's crazy how overpowering these drugs are. They'll completely take over someone's life
Usually they are getting that high because they don't deem their life as very valuable anymore
And they'd likely be right at that point.
It's not so crazy when you realize that people are going through tremendous amounts of pain and suffering every day. When you've tried everything available to you and nothing improves, what's the next logical step for getting rid of that pain? A life like that isn't worth living, so realistically, what are you giving up on by turning to drugs?