I don't fault safer supply activists, which include bereaved family members who are motivated to think if something had been different everything might have been different.
I do fault safer supply researcher-advocates, who have been strikingly dishonest and used relentless self-promotional moral posturing to yell over detractors and INSIST addicts be liberally supplied with poison. I think these scholars are actually evil.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously. You know so little about what you are talking about that you are incapable of realizing it. Read my post below from an actual epidemiological scientist before believing this slanderous article masquerading as a scientific and ethical one.
Whether or not they "insisted," there is very little going on with safer supply, so they certainly weren't effective in their insistence. I'm from BC, which led the nation in safer supply supports until people far from the scene started yelling and things got political, but even here, there are fewer than 4,500 people receiving safer supply among the 100,000-125,000 people with opioid use disorder in our province. People presume that safer supply "failed," but in fact it barely got a start before the moral panic set in. It is not a panacea - there is no panacea - but slagging people who believe it could play an important part in slowing these endless and unnecessary deaths we've faced for a decade hardly seems productive. I am wide open to all the complex strategies and conversations needed to curb this crisis, but I'm mystified at people who just want to shout down and shame anyone whose ideas don't align with their own.
uh-huh. so are you among those who believe diversion is “a harm reduction practice rooted in mutual aid that saves lives and improves quality of life”?
Because — let’s be honest — there has been NO PILE OF HORSESHIT safer supply researcher-advocates have shown themselves unwilling to shovel, harm who it may.
I believe in acting to stop people dying. Harm reduction has somehow come to mean only actions around illicit drugs, but I'm in favour of it in all its many forms - helmets for cyclists, seatbelts, less processed foods, regulatory bodies making sure the buildings won't collapse, etc etc. As for diversion, sure, it happens. That's where the opioids came from in the first place, via the medical system. Fentanyl was diverted from anesthetic use. Xylazine was diverted from vet use. Diversion in safer supply is often about people wanting fentanyl but getting some different drug, so they sell the drug they get to acquire the drug they want. How might we address that issue? If we could talk at all normally about drug use and start doing some problem-solving without instantly retreating into our corners to shout down the other side, maybe we'd get somewhere. Meanwhile, people keep dying, and decades of doing the same old shit and expecting new results continues.
This comment coming up first is shameful, for many reasons. Please read my post six comments down before believing anything this article says. It is slander and the poster is masquerading as a scientist.
This is what I am talking about. The smarmy dishonesty. Do you also believe in puppies and warm hugs and want to insinuate critics don’t?
Does safer supply reduce harm? No. It spreads addiction through diversion and it kills addicts. Researcher Advocates have refused to admit this and have touted studies designed to obscure it. They have been aggressively self righteous about their way or the highway and have gone after researchers who have criticized them and produced research results they don’t like. Now as it is no longer tenable to hide the destruction they have wrought they mewl about how persecuted they are and how everyone else is a big meanie and they are but smol well meaning beans.
I presume that you are an "armchair academic" or, as people more diplomatically say, a layperson pretending they know what they are talking about. Prove me wrong. "SMARMY DISHONESTY"? Read up on what logical fallacies are and then prove your skills as an intelligent person by pointing out how many of them are this article. Because believe me, as an actual academic, there are numerous, numerous logical fallacies and dishonest science here that anyone taking this article seriously is a fool.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on why people don't stick with OAT therapies very long, seeing as you appear to be completely invested in OAT drugs like Sublocade as the solution (to the point that I'm presuming Indivior is a funder of the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy). With Sublocade noted in the company's own reports to investors as the big hope to drive revenues, it feels uncomfortable to me that Sublocade is being put forward by your centre as the answer for everyone. I am sure you know just how complex and individual this issue is - mightn't safer supply have a key role to play along with many other approaches? This issue feels too important to me to be caught up in ideologies, personal beliefs, politicking, and a pharmaceutical company's desire to make more money.
YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. The fact that you have published this article and gained traction among some fellow fools is an acute example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (I presume you'll have to google that one). There were so many red flags popping up in your article that I don't even know where to start, but I'll topple it all with one simple ethical principle: you don't have the right to control other people's lives by reducing their autonomy and their right to clean supplies and safer places to live.
Letting that one rest in your brains is good enough. But I am so ashamed of the rest of this article and the comments supporting it that I am obligated as a human being and academic to point out at least a few more things. This article overflows with shameful and puritanical rhetoric, is riddled with errors in thinking and logical fallacies, and lacks any humanity whatsoever. Any media outlet or fellow human being reading and commenting in favour of this SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.
Not only have you proven that you have no idea how research and science works, but you've proven yourself an Ivory Tower, privileged fool who is incapable of even seeing how foolish you are.
I don't fault safer supply activists, which include bereaved family members who are motivated to think if something had been different everything might have been different.
I do fault safer supply researcher-advocates, who have been strikingly dishonest and used relentless self-promotional moral posturing to yell over detractors and INSIST addicts be liberally supplied with poison. I think these scholars are actually evil.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously. You know so little about what you are talking about that you are incapable of realizing it. Read my post below from an actual epidemiological scientist before believing this slanderous article masquerading as a scientific and ethical one.
Whether or not they "insisted," there is very little going on with safer supply, so they certainly weren't effective in their insistence. I'm from BC, which led the nation in safer supply supports until people far from the scene started yelling and things got political, but even here, there are fewer than 4,500 people receiving safer supply among the 100,000-125,000 people with opioid use disorder in our province. People presume that safer supply "failed," but in fact it barely got a start before the moral panic set in. It is not a panacea - there is no panacea - but slagging people who believe it could play an important part in slowing these endless and unnecessary deaths we've faced for a decade hardly seems productive. I am wide open to all the complex strategies and conversations needed to curb this crisis, but I'm mystified at people who just want to shout down and shame anyone whose ideas don't align with their own.
uh-huh. so are you among those who believe diversion is “a harm reduction practice rooted in mutual aid that saves lives and improves quality of life”?
Because — let’s be honest — there has been NO PILE OF HORSESHIT safer supply researcher-advocates have shown themselves unwilling to shovel, harm who it may.
I believe in acting to stop people dying. Harm reduction has somehow come to mean only actions around illicit drugs, but I'm in favour of it in all its many forms - helmets for cyclists, seatbelts, less processed foods, regulatory bodies making sure the buildings won't collapse, etc etc. As for diversion, sure, it happens. That's where the opioids came from in the first place, via the medical system. Fentanyl was diverted from anesthetic use. Xylazine was diverted from vet use. Diversion in safer supply is often about people wanting fentanyl but getting some different drug, so they sell the drug they get to acquire the drug they want. How might we address that issue? If we could talk at all normally about drug use and start doing some problem-solving without instantly retreating into our corners to shout down the other side, maybe we'd get somewhere. Meanwhile, people keep dying, and decades of doing the same old shit and expecting new results continues.
My reply to this appeared out of sequence
Thank you, Adam, for exposing to the public the mountains of so-called 'safer' supply pseudoscience.
This comment coming up first is shameful, for many reasons. Please read my post six comments down before believing anything this article says. It is slander and the poster is masquerading as a scientist.
This is what I am talking about. The smarmy dishonesty. Do you also believe in puppies and warm hugs and want to insinuate critics don’t?
Does safer supply reduce harm? No. It spreads addiction through diversion and it kills addicts. Researcher Advocates have refused to admit this and have touted studies designed to obscure it. They have been aggressively self righteous about their way or the highway and have gone after researchers who have criticized them and produced research results they don’t like. Now as it is no longer tenable to hide the destruction they have wrought they mewl about how persecuted they are and how everyone else is a big meanie and they are but smol well meaning beans.
I presume that you are an "armchair academic" or, as people more diplomatically say, a layperson pretending they know what they are talking about. Prove me wrong. "SMARMY DISHONESTY"? Read up on what logical fallacies are and then prove your skills as an intelligent person by pointing out how many of them are this article. Because believe me, as an actual academic, there are numerous, numerous logical fallacies and dishonest science here that anyone taking this article seriously is a fool.
Oh dear. You worked at the U of A on a harm reduction project: which one? Under what PI or PIs?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on why people don't stick with OAT therapies very long, seeing as you appear to be completely invested in OAT drugs like Sublocade as the solution (to the point that I'm presuming Indivior is a funder of the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy). With Sublocade noted in the company's own reports to investors as the big hope to drive revenues, it feels uncomfortable to me that Sublocade is being put forward by your centre as the answer for everyone. I am sure you know just how complex and individual this issue is - mightn't safer supply have a key role to play along with many other approaches? This issue feels too important to me to be caught up in ideologies, personal beliefs, politicking, and a pharmaceutical company's desire to make more money.
YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. The fact that you have published this article and gained traction among some fellow fools is an acute example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (I presume you'll have to google that one). There were so many red flags popping up in your article that I don't even know where to start, but I'll topple it all with one simple ethical principle: you don't have the right to control other people's lives by reducing their autonomy and their right to clean supplies and safer places to live.
Letting that one rest in your brains is good enough. But I am so ashamed of the rest of this article and the comments supporting it that I am obligated as a human being and academic to point out at least a few more things. This article overflows with shameful and puritanical rhetoric, is riddled with errors in thinking and logical fallacies, and lacks any humanity whatsoever. Any media outlet or fellow human being reading and commenting in favour of this SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.
Not only have you proven that you have no idea how research and science works, but you've proven yourself an Ivory Tower, privileged fool who is incapable of even seeing how foolish you are.