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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   11101 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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Haha, a fellow Vancouverite! You mentioned the safe-injection site above. Let me tell you a story about that site which, to me, illustrates all the problems with the system.

When the safe-injection site was first proposed, it was proposed as an experiment. The proponents had several outcome metrics and statistics which they said the safe-injection site would improve. As part of the two-year pilot, money was allocated for a study which would verify these metrics and provide a solid scientific basis on which to continue or stop the project. So the pilot was approved and started up.

Six months before the pilot was to end, the study was canceled as the safe-injection site was "obviously working". And thus the site was made permanent.

The problem is that the people in charge simply deny reality. They'll tell you that all of this is sensationalized. They'll say that you have no proof or studies that your solutions will work. You can't appeal to metrics, because they're the ones in charge of generating those metrics and they're cooking the books.

I always thought Seattle should have a Safe Injection Site by its most famous landmark, just to make clear to all the tourists what Seattle is really all about. Call it the Space Needle Needle Space.

Just reverse the name and call it the Needle Space. Simple, and neatly inverts the optimistic futurism of the original.

Imagine telling someone in 10 years it used to be called the space needle and having them go "space? Who cares about space? Why would we ever name something like that? It's always been the needle space, you must be a fascist trying to Undermine Community Wellness!"

Not going for the obvious "Space Needle Safe Needle"?

Safe Needle Space Needle?

But all the hobos hang out by Pioneer Square (or at least did when I had the misfortune of living in Seattle a decade ago), and it would be oppressive to force them all to trek up to the Space Needle to shoot up safely.

Especially when they'd get run down by the mounted police posted to keep them out of the pikes place tourist zone. Do they still do that?

Imagine owning a business around pioneer sq and being told "you have to pay taxes so the police can herd all the vagrants onto your doorstep so politically connected businesses can actually make money at your expense"

Perhaps I'm missing something but are you talking about Insite? Because that was the first such sanctioned facility in all of North America, and AIUI how that went was somewhat different: Insite was started in 2003 as part of a three-year pilot study, with a special exception to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act applying to it so it could function as a safe injection site. The exception was slated to expire in 2006, but it was granted yet another three-year extension so more research could be conducted. Health minister Tony Clement eventually stated there was a lack of health benefits and denied it yet another extension, meaning Insite would close, but a constitutional challenge was brought by the operators and proponents of the facility.

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that the benefits for already-existing users were clear and that failing to extend the exception would violate the rights of its clients as outlined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the Section 7 rights to not be deprived of life, liberty or security in accord with the “principles of fundamental justice”. Note that the Court did not establish a positive right to safe injection sites, but did make it so that once InSite was established, depriving its users of that benefit would be a violation of their s7 rights. Because of that ruling, BC is now obligated to continue exempting Insite.

Case in question is Canada (AG) v PHS Community Services Society.

Funny how the judges never seem to care how the injection site might impact the broader public. That’s never a consideration it seems - what about MY right to security?

Here's where the YIMBYs lecture us about how we have no right to veto ruinous forms of construction and zoning. Such as homeless shelters and safe injection sites anywhere near where I live.

Yeah, I think this story would have been printed in the first 3 year pilot, before the Conservatives came to power. The situation may have changed after it was published.

And I think the point holds, the Conservatives attempted to stop it with research, but failed.

When the safe-injection site was first proposed, it was proposed as an experiment. The proponents had several outcome metrics and statistics which they said the safe-injection site would improve. As part of the two-year pilot, money was allocated for a study which would verify these metrics and provide a solid scientific basis on which to continue or stop the project. So the pilot was approved and started up.

Six months before the pilot was to end, the study was canceled as the safe-injection site was "obviously working". And thus the site was made permanent.

Do you have a link discussing this, for the benefit of us non-Canadians? The nefariousness of that situation seems fairly extreme; I'd like to say it's shocking but truthfully I find it pretty believable.

Edit: Posted this and immediately noticed there was another comment already asking for a link... whoops. I'd like to see it too though, fwiw.

I didn't know about the study. Would you share a link with me?

But also, the baffling part, regardless of why was it put there in the first place, legitimately or illegitimately, is the common sense of the situation: the playing ground was already there, less than a block away.

Unfortunately, it was a long time ago, maybe 20 years. I read it in an actual paper newspaper (maybe the Georgia Strait, if anyone remembers that, one of those free very left-wing weeklies). To be honest, I only remember it because it was a strong point in flipping me from a Chretien/Martin Liberal to conservative. Along the lines of if you agree to try a potential solution, it's permanent regardless of effectiveness, then it's better not to try anything unless you absolutely have no choice.

Though I think your second part is a little unfair. In a crowded city, there will always be a park or school or something with a couple blocks of the site. And I imagine that the proponents would assume that junkies would shoot up inside the site, rather than just outside it. It might even have the effect of reducing the number of junkies in the park.

Though I think your second part is a little unfair. In a crowded city, there will always be a park or school or something with a couple blocks of the site.

There are a few stories of that. IIRC, one city has "sex offender bridge", which is the only location within city limits that's more than X distance from Y locations, and therefore the only legal place for registered sex offender to live in the city.

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