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The majority of Canadian provinces have conservative governments. Why do people vote against their own class interests?
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” ― Edward Bernays, Propaganda
I think you read my response, but perhaps didn’t understand it.
But “prolonging life” as an addict just gives someone more opportunities to die.
People are dying because they are consuming drugs of unknown purity and strength. That is, you don’t know what’s in your drugs and you don’t know how strong the drugs are. There are simple solutions to these problems. Best solution is to provide a safe supply. Second best solution have safe consumption sites and drug testing available.
the reasons why people are taking these drugs in the first place.
There are as many reasons to take drugs as there are people taking them. The reasons aren’t our concern. Obviously poverty, housing and employment are things we can help people with, but beyond that it’s up to the individual user. As I pointed out the majority of people using drugs will quit on their own in time. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/15/1071282194/addiction-substance-recovery-treatment
If B.C drags out a program that isn’t getting results (i.e. getting people off drugs)
How successful do you think treatment is? Would it surprise you to learn that faith based recovery has a success rate of about 5 to 10%? There are other programs that have slightly better results but in general abstinence based treatment is a dismal failure.
A new book concludes that the success rate for Alcoholics Anonymous is between 5 and 10 per cent, one of the worst in all of medicine https://www.thestar.com/life/alcoholics-anonymous-has-a-terrible-success-rate-addiction-expert-finds/article_b8a76bb7-0d3c-565d-be99-d57d3337e491.html
This article was part of my first response to you.
When she says “most people,” she means most people who get long-term medication-assisted treatment (MAT), widely considered the gold standard in addiction care. It combines regular counseling and behavioral therapy with the medication methadone or buprenorphine (often prescribed under the brand name Suboxone). Both contain synthetic opioid compounds, which prevent withdrawal and cravings, and they can lower overdoses by as much as 76 percent. (A third medication, less often used, is naltrexone, which blocks the high from opioids.)
The philosophy of MAT — a departure from the moralizing, abstinence-based rehab and 12-step programs that dominated addiction care for most of the 20th century — began to take shape in the early 2000s, when the Food and Drug Administration approved buprenorphine and a federal law authorized primary care physicians to prescribe it.
MAT shifted the treatment paradigm dramatically. Now, every overdose death is a tragedy, Wakeman told me, not because opioid addiction is unsolvable but because, like so many other chronic illnesses, it’s now very treatable. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2024/1/16/24033590/treatment-opioid-addiction-crisis-2024
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200405/the-surprising-truth-about-addiction-0
The Surprising Truth About Addiction More people quit addictions than maintain them, and they do so on their own. That’s not to say it happens overnight. People succeed when they recognize that the addiction interferes with something they value—and when they develop the confidence that they can change.
I keep editing to add more links.
The first step has to be keeping people alive. The second step is building a relationship with the people so that they feel comfortable accepting help. This can be done through overdose prevention centres and drug testing facilities. The third step would be medication assisted treatment, but not everyone will be receptive to the idea. Therefore we repeat step one and step two.
I am going to assume you honestly don’t know and are asking a legitimate question.
We are in the middle of an toxic drug crisis, in British Columbia almost 7 people a day are dying. Now this may surprise you, but dead people don’t recover. Therefore the most important thing we can try to do in the short term is save lives. Rehab and treatment are obviously part of the solution, but they don’t work for everybody and in fact the data suggests Abstinence-Only Opioid Treatment Is Deadlier Than None.
Incidence rates for opioid poisoning deaths for those exposed to treatment ranged from 6.06±1.40 per 1000 persons exposed to methadone to 17.36±3.22 per 1000 persons exposed to any non-medication treatment. The estimated incidence rate for those not exposed to treatment was 9.80±0.72 per 1000 persons. With no exposure to treatment as referent, exposure to methadone or buprenorphine reduced the relative risk by 38% or 34%, respectively; the relative risk of non-medication treatments was equal to or worse than no exposure to treatment (RR = 1.27–1.77). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871623012784?via%3Dihub
Now as many people with lived experience and people who study the subject will tell you the majority of people will age out of addiction on their own in time. The key is providing the resources they need to do that and of course keeping them alive.
We have treatments for opioid addiction that work. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2024/1/16/24033590/treatment-opioid-addiction-crisis-2024
That would be odd, since the national observer is a centre left publication. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-observer-canada/
It’s probably an editors is fuck up.
I find your hand-wringing over water and sanitation issues to be disingenuous. Obviously the city can provide freshwater and Porta potty’s so that’s not really an issue.
They are not “hoarding”, they are gathering together for survival. You are confusing the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society with corporations and the wealthy who are hoarding housing. They are in communal space because that’s all they have, they have no where else, they have to exist in communal space. If the tent communities are smashed the people don’t suddenly disappear, they simply disperse into the neighbourhoods making them even more more vulnerable.
What’s this nonsense about building shacks in the woods? Do they have support systems there? Where is the food supposed to come from, what about medical care?
So you don’t have any evidence, and now you want to bring mythical “Russian aligned bad actors” in to support your claim?
this was my response to another commenter
According to a paper published by NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, the strategic use of human shields by groups like Hamas hinges on exploiting Israel’s aim to minimize civilian casualties and the sensitivity of Western public opinion. This tactic allows Hamas to either accuse Israel of war crimes if civilian casualties occur or to protect its assets and continue operations if the IDF limits its military response. This approach is an example of ‘lawfare’, using legal and public platforms to challenge an adversary.[6][7] Israel has said that Hamas’s actions have been responsible for civilian casualties in Gaza,[8][9] Human rights groups have said that even if Hamas were using human shields, Israel must still abide by international law to protect civilians.[10][11]
Amnesty International investigated claims made by Israel in the 2008–2009 Gaza War and the 2014 Gaza War that Hamas employed human shields, but found no evidence of such usage. In their report on the 2008-2009 war, Amnesty said that “contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials” that it had found no evidence of Hamas directing civilians to shield military assets or that it had forced civilians to remain in or near buildings used by fighters. Amnesty found that Hamas has launched rockets from near civilian locations, which it said endangered civilians and amounted to a violation of the requirement that Hamas take all necessary precautions to protect civilians from military action, but that this does not constitute shielding under international law.[12] In 2014, Amnesty said, regarding repeated allegations by Israel of Hamas using civilians as human shields, that it “does not have evidence at this point that Palestinian civilians have been intentionally used by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups during the current hostilities to ‘shield’ specific locations or military personnel or equipment from Israeli attacks.” They also said that Hamas urging residents to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate “are not the same as directing specific civilians to remain in their homes as ‘human shields’ for fighters, munitions, or military equipment.”[10] Human Rights Watch also said they found no evidence that Hamas had used human shields in the 2009 conflict.[13] In 2023, HRW stated “Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups need to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks and not use civilians as ‘human shields.’”[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas#cite_note-HRW2023-14
Understand some people are squeamish about using wiki as a source, but they have cited all of their sources and we can track them back to the originals if you like.
According to a paper published by NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, the strategic use of human shields by groups like Hamas hinges on exploiting Israel’s aim to minimize civilian casualties and the sensitivity of Western public opinion. This tactic allows Hamas to either accuse Israel of war crimes if civilian casualties occur or to protect its assets and continue operations if the IDF limits its military response. This approach is an example of ‘lawfare’, using legal and public platforms to challenge an adversary.[6][7] Israel has said that Hamas’s actions have been responsible for civilian casualties in Gaza,[8][9] Human rights groups have said that even if Hamas were using human shields, Israel must still abide by international law to protect civilians.[10][11]
Amnesty International investigated claims made by Israel in the 2008–2009 Gaza War and the 2014 Gaza War that Hamas employed human shields, but found no evidence of such usage. In their report on the 2008-2009 war, Amnesty said that “contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials” that it had found no evidence of Hamas directing civilians to shield military assets or that it had forced civilians to remain in or near buildings used by fighters. Amnesty found that Hamas has launched rockets from near civilian locations, which it said endangered civilians and amounted to a violation of the requirement that Hamas take all necessary precautions to protect civilians from military action, but that this does not constitute shielding under international law.[12] In 2014, Amnesty said, regarding repeated allegations by Israel of Hamas using civilians as human shields, that it “does not have evidence at this point that Palestinian civilians have been intentionally used by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups during the current hostilities to ‘shield’ specific locations or military personnel or equipment from Israeli attacks.” They also said that Hamas urging residents to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate “are not the same as directing specific civilians to remain in their homes as ‘human shields’ for fighters, munitions, or military equipment.”[10] Human Rights Watch also said they found no evidence that Hamas had used human shields in the 2009 conflict.[13] In 2023, HRW stated “Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups need to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks and not use civilians as ‘human shields.’”[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas#cite_note-HRW2023-14
Understand some people are squeamish about using wiki as a source, but they have cited all of their sources and we can track them back to the originals if you like.
I don’t care what you think. I want you to supply actual evidence. Do you have any?
There is plenty of evidence of Israel using Palestinian children as human shields. Perhaps you got confused.
A United Nations committee focused on youth rights accused Israel Thursday of failing to stop the mistreatment of Palestinian children in military and police custody.
The group’s report accuses Israeli forces of using Palestinian children as human shields, and alleges that detained children in some cases face torture, solitary confinement and threats of sexual assault.
Assembled by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the 21-page document comes three months after a UNICEF paper criticized the “systematic and institutionalized” mistreatment of Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military.
Sidenote, there was no image accompanying the above story, but it’s very simple to find images with a Google search
Please supply evidence proving Hamas will not let the orphans leave.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231211-report-nearly-25000-children-in-gaza-now-orphans/
Initial figures from Gaza indicate that 24,000-25,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have become orphans as a result of Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign on the besieged enclave, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said.
The rights group’s initial report highlighted that 10,000 children had been killed as a result of Israel’s bombs, while some 25,000 had lost one or both of their parents. Some 640,000 children had lost their homes after they were either partially or totally destroyed, leaving them homeless.
In addition, the future of hundreds of thousands of children is still unknown, as 217 schools in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed during the Israeli attacks, severely affecting the education process in the Strip.
In both cases a smaller weaker nation has been on the receiving end of military aggression. In both cases civilians were displaced causing them to become refugees.
14·9 months agoAmong younger Americans, and along political lines, divisions are more prominent. Almost half of those surveyed aged 18-29, 49%, say Israel is committing genocide, with 24% disagreeing and 27% uncertain.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/americans-believe-israel-committing-genocide-poll
The number of people facing possible starvation in the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks is the largest share of a population at risk of famine identified anywhere since a United Nations-affiliated panel created the current global food-insecurity assessment 20 years ago.
“The rigor, scale and speed of the destruction of the structures necessary for survival, and enforcement of the siege, surpasses any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years,” said Alex de Waal, an expert on humanitarian crises and international law at Tufts University who wrote “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/health/gaza-israel-hunger-starvation.html
Israeli Intelligence Has Deemed Hamas-Run Health Ministry’s Death Toll Figures Generally Accurate
According to the Ministry of Health, which reports to Gaza’s Hamas-led government, at least 27,500 civilians have been killed and more than 63,000 wounded since Israel began military operations in response to the Oct. 7 attacks, which killed at least 1100 Israelis and left more than 250 people hostage.
ICJ says its not a genocide
This is incorrect.
LONDON — The International Court of Justice has found it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention. https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa
I blocked the user, because he was clearly not interested in having a discussion.
The Zio-troll has entered the chat
Take that up with the young Americans being polled.
I think you’re confusing an informal opinion poll taken by the media outlet with official polling numbers. It would have been better to list the polls being cited, but in general most Americans want to see an immediate cease-fire. I’ll keep my eyes open for more data
Substance-abuse pales in comparison to death. I don’t care if people are addicted to substances as long as they continue to live they have an opportunity to quit.
The government isn’t saying that. The government is saying there isn’t money to expand the programs. This is primarily political because people on the right have attacked evidence-based addiction treatment.
More deaths. Either that, or expand safe supply which as previously noted has political opposition from the right. Conservatives are playing politics with peoples lives.
If you want to prevent deaths due to toxic drugs, the obvious answer is to provide non-toxic drugs. You have no control over whether or not people use drugs. The only thing you can do with 100% certainty is provide clean safe drugs.
Show proof that opioids is less likely.
Not if the other nine are dead, right?
Safe supply and harm reduction. Clean, safe drugs including stimulant would cost very little. In addition the money saved from policing, courts, incarceration plus reduced burden on paramedics and others in healthcare means that even after the government provided safe supply they would still be saving money.
Ironically the right wing libertarian Cato institute believes the same thing. https://www.cato.org/commentary/economic-moral-case-legalizing-cocaine-heroin#
As I previously explained, this is political. The NDP is worried about right wing backlash in the approach to an election. Instead of doing the right thing, they have caved to political pressure.