Quote:
Originally Posted by ssiguy
I am dead set against them.
I strongly believe that as a health issue it should be dealt with where every other health issue is.............the hospital with special out clinic.
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Sound like you're actually in favour of them, but you want them to be at hospitals.
I'm no expert but that seems like a reasonable take. It makes me wonder if other social services like homeless shelters would also benefit from being near or at hospitals.
As a related topic, I'd like to hear forumers' observations about drug use in COVID days.
I know that overdose deaths roughly doubled in Vancouver. Anecdotally it seems like people's drug habits changed in a lot of places when quarantine measures came through. I live in a city with a rave scene. Drug use is a part of that, but people taking speed to dance for 24 hours is not a social problem. With clubs shut, people tweaking around the city is a social problem. Also, since party drugs are uppers there didn't seem to be much opiate use relative to other European cities (Copenhagen is the worst I've seen anywhere). Post-quarantine, heroin caught on. Mostly people smoking it, so at least there's no needle problem yet.
So, less outlets for fun + desperate times = more opiate use
On a broader perspective, homelessness also seems worse, or at least more visible, than pre-quarantine. It could be that a lot of people scraping by couldn't keep it together when their jobs evaporated. It could be that a lot of marginally homeless--couch surfers and so on--found their usual hosts less accommodating when they became afraid of getting sick. Whatever the case may be, with businesses all closed, every doorway became a viable camping spot, and a lot of areas that were usually busy with tourists are became camp sites.