Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheba
Pretty much all you've come up with is forced detox and harsher sentences for dealers. That's going to barely make a dent in the problems of the DTES.
How about some redevelopment so there's more affordable housing in the area? Oh wait except as soon as the word 'redevelopment' comes up a whole bunch of people start protesting, thinking they're going to be pushed out of the area.
You'll notice the other cities in the region don't have one 'big' ghetto area. There are still homeless people and drug problems - they're just in smaller locations spread throughout those cities.
That's just one aspect of undoubtedly many that need to be dealt with. It doesn't help that people in the DTES want change, but they don't want to make a change (see the protesting comment above).
Btw fentanyl is only the current killer drug of choice. I remember clearly when heroin was killing a lot of people in the 90's.
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I do agree with more affordable housing development, but that is very expensive, and without forced detox, more would choose to be in the state of being taken care of by the welfare system while under the influence. Why choose a better path when everything else is provided for free by the state? So I say, everything has to be implemented at the same time: modular housing, forced detox, strict enforcement, etc. You can't do one without the other, as history has shown that that will fail.
Heroin kills but not as fast as what is killing addicts now. It is more shocking when people are dropping like flies sprayed with insecticides.
If people don't want change and drag down the neighbourhood and society with them, then big brother needs to step in and set things right. Being tolerant with something as bad as this is just asking for more trouble in the future.
I agree that in other Canadian cities, things are spread out more, but you need to also notice that we are the champion when it comes to death rates of DTES and Vancouver as a whole. So, what's wrong with us Westcoasters, and why can't we solve the lingering problem of DTES? Have people even reflected on this before?
Reddit comments on DTES:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/c...town_eastside/