We should just go a step further and hand out oxy or percs to addicts for free.
The pills are incredibly cheap to manufacture.
A few things would happen if we started handing out opiods for free:
* petty crime would decrease -- it's not the drug that causes the crime, it's trying to pay for the drug
* organized crime would decrease -- moving opiods is a lucrative operation, and our addicts are bankrolling very bad people by doing business with them
* users would get clean product -- opiods laced with fentanyl are a huge problem and responsible for the majority of hospitalizations and overdose deaths
* more users could hold stable employment and rehabilitate themselves -- i've known plenty of opiods addicts, but you'd never know they had a problem, because they were all rich tech workers that were not stealing to satisfy their addiction
* most injection users would be pill users if it wasn't so expensive -- giving them free pills would encourage a less risky route of administration and decrease sepsis cases
If we still have a homeless problem after that, communal housing outside of the city with free drugs might be enough to get them to relocate to where they're not a problem and in considerably less danger.
But then I remember that we live in a god-fearing christian nation, where drugs are bad and addicts should be shunned, so my plan probably won't work.
I don't know whether this is a brilliant solution or a dystopian nightmare.
You'd re-invent the 19th century opium den, but it's public housing with free Oxy just outside the city limits, where you can choose to forego any meaningful integration into society, and (I assume) cut your life a bit shorter and escape into an unending, but more socially-acceptable, opium high.
It sounds bad when you say it like that, but also a huge upgrade over the current situation.
I think the idea would be to keep everyone safe and ideally give them pathways back to normal society, not create a permanent underclass.
If a significant percentage of the population wants to take advantage of such a program, that probably means society is doing something else wrong unrelated to drug or housing policy.
Pretty much yes, can't force people to get mental health help, can't force people to quit opioids. People who think housing and access to mental health and counselling programs will solve the entire homeless crisis are incredibly short-sighted.
Anecdotal for sure, but a couple of my friends have had parents who were addicts, even when they had the love and support and housing options of being with family they chose to stay on the streets, unless they decided they needed to rob a family member for some more spending money. Spreading subsidized housing out doesn't work, addicts will just hang out closer to their dealers/sources on the streets. Putting up highly concentrated housing programs just make this problem even more dense, creating a radius of exceptionally high crime.
Even in the most idyllic scenario of creating perpetually well-maintained and totally free housing, many will end up choosing the streets anyways, out of convenience, mistrust, or mental health issues.
It blows my mind how out of touch people have to be to reframe the problem in this manner. Better housing is always a good thing to strive for, but clearly not the driving factor for the vast majority of homeless.
The “build more housing” coalition has been winning this argument for at least 7 years. Are you under the impression that mayors haven’t been green lighting more housing and small housing pop ups? Do you think government officials have yet to implement your plan? They are building more affordable housing and yet the problem is getting worse. I drive my kids to school on the LA freeways and have seen countless people under freeway on ramps and in tent cities next to freeways shoot up drugs or stumble around, obviously high on drugs. The scope of the problem has become shocking recently. Huge trash encampments bedside every freeway. It’s not rocket science. Drive through LA, drive through San Fran. Even the main image on the linked article shows a guy who clearly shows the effects of drug abuse. If it were a drug crisis, what would the solutions be? At least try to implement those and see where it gets us instead of deny the scope of the drug abuse effect because it has a moral component.
I see the same things you do, I was actually agreeing with you that we are in a drug crisis more than anything else. It's not an easy situation to "solve" because at the end of the day people make there own choices for the most part, and it's especially hard to offer assistance when people are unpredictable or dangerous.
The pills are incredibly cheap to manufacture.
A few things would happen if we started handing out opiods for free:
* petty crime would decrease -- it's not the drug that causes the crime, it's trying to pay for the drug
* organized crime would decrease -- moving opiods is a lucrative operation, and our addicts are bankrolling very bad people by doing business with them
* users would get clean product -- opiods laced with fentanyl are a huge problem and responsible for the majority of hospitalizations and overdose deaths
* more users could hold stable employment and rehabilitate themselves -- i've known plenty of opiods addicts, but you'd never know they had a problem, because they were all rich tech workers that were not stealing to satisfy their addiction
* most injection users would be pill users if it wasn't so expensive -- giving them free pills would encourage a less risky route of administration and decrease sepsis cases
If we still have a homeless problem after that, communal housing outside of the city with free drugs might be enough to get them to relocate to where they're not a problem and in considerably less danger.
But then I remember that we live in a god-fearing christian nation, where drugs are bad and addicts should be shunned, so my plan probably won't work.