this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
74 points (98.7% liked)
Canada
7185 readers
540 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
🏒 Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montréal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
💻 Universities
💵 Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
🗣️ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
🍁 Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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
Ahh yes food and hard drugs are the same thing. Jesus give your head a shake. You don't need to do drugs.
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
Oh I'm not referring to myself, I live quite well. I just think it's shitty to let people rot when it's so easy to help them. You have to be an incredibly bitter person to believe someone deserves death because they were desperate for some sort of comfort
I've talked to a few people and I can see how you can get there. To be honest, I've gotten pretty down myself.
A lot of people on drugs are, well, not nice people. It doesn't take too many instances of having your bike or mail stolen, picking needles out of your dog's foot, not being able to let your kids use the park next door, or being woken up by someone pounding your door at 2am looking for the crackhouse down the street, or talking to another neighbourhood business that's considering closing because they're done with shoplifting, harassment and/or breakins.
It gets tiresome, and it really, really drains your empathy to see supports given to people, only to see those same people rob you blind three days later, especially when they have access to medical care via a clinic and you don't.
Now, to be clear, I do see that this is a systemic problem, and that a lot of addicts are where they are because the system is broken and they're collateral damage, so I'm sympathetic, but a lot of people who are allies could spend some time understanding why people who aren't addicts but are victims of crime addicts perpetuate are resentful.
The problem is, Allies can be both a) terribly arrogant, and b) irritatingly exclusionary. Case in point: pre-pandemic, the local support network where I lived opened pop-up safe-use+free-meal sites in the park next door to where I live. I walked over and told them "I'm really glad to see a safe-injection site" and how it'll help the area and got an absolute earful of angry correction about how they're not called "safe-injection" sites any more and that it isn't about helping the community, it's about saving lives.
That pretty much, instantly, put me off helping this particular organization, and I've seen that attitude--that monstrous chip-on-the-shoulder on the part of a number of Allies--put off local businesses and citizens who would normally like to help.
Allies really need to here this, because it's important: victims of crime are in a place where they are disinclined to care about saving addicts' lives, and if you want the support of people in the community for services that will help save addicts' lives, bridge-building is important. And to tie it back to the above poster: berating them for not caring isn't going to make them care, but explaining to them how services that support addicts result in less crime and less hazardous waste will.