OK...I feel that I can finally introduce the 'Gridlock Plan for the DTES' tm.

Fucking level it.

Stay tuned, cause it gets better.

We have ourselves a little auction. We take all these guys for a walk down Hastings and the side streets and just bid off the building rights, building by building. City doesn't own it to sell to you? No worries. No one in their right mind is going to deny the check that you are now entitled to write for the building of Vancouver's newest up and coming neighborhood.

Here's the best part. Twenty, thats 20% of every check goes into a big fucking hippie fund. We use that to build social housing. Anywhere but the DTES. Sprinkled like rain through the entire Lower Mainland is a little social housing project house. It's not Vancouver's problem alone to deal with. Never was.

Now that we've financed it-without a single taxpayer dollar I might add, oh and created the biggest boon in BC's economy in recent years...hey Christy, imagine what you could do with 1% unemployment for 3 years? We've gotten to the heart of the problem:

Misery begets misery.

How the royal fuck do you expect drug addicts and hookers and alcoholics to pull their shit together when they are surrounded by the waste of human civilization?

You can't! Sample dialogue: "I may use crack, but look at thaat guy! He's fucked up. I'm nowhere near as bad as him"

You are what you eat folks. If you hang around fucking trash all day, guess what...chances are you're trash. If you hang around with the business elite, chances are its gonna rub off as well.

The real estate possibilities in the DTES are endless. Any chance I get, I go down there to look at what could be built. That building a few weeks ago with the 850 sq.ft apartments? I stood in front of that 2 years ago for an hour dividing and sub-dividing it into condos. I never thought to just build them as closets, but whatevs..different visions, right?

The point is, it would make New York's SoHo look like SoWhat?

Once you break up that huge group of people, you can start to attack the problems. Why do we poor millions of dollars into that neighborhood? Because its an insurmountable fucking task, that's why. We have dickless politicians polish up a pipe for crack heads, and an indoor alley for heroine addicts and think they are done until the next election cycle. There is nothing you can do when its xx number of homeless, another xx living in poverty and another god knows how many drug addicts all piled up on top of each other.

No wonder! Ever tried to treat a patient that has cancer, and heart disease and lost kidney function, and has Aids and has no money so he can't even eat properly? Where do you start? You can't.

Get them into smaller groups. Now we can have services that can reach our problem people. We can house 30 people. We can feed 30 people.

Yeah. It gets ugly. The DTES is going to ignite in riots. Politicians may not win elections. But it solves the problem.

That word, is gentrify.

I also support the gentrification of the Downtown Eastside.

:h5:

This, I agree with-but mostly out of default. I see my options are: drugs are a legal problem, or drug addiction is a disease. I'd rather see it dealt with as a disease than a legal matter. That said, I'm still not convinced on the kiddie gloves that get used as soon as we say, "disease".

And I don't want the rest of their issues to get "disease-washed" such as all the other legal issues that surround how to pay for the addiction. And any step down the legal ladder for drug addicts should be equally matched by stiffer penalties for drug dealing.

id rather see someone start mixing rat poison or some other powdered substance laced into cocaine or heroin and let these junkies shoot up and die, solves 2 problems in my mind....1 less junkie to suck up health care, and 1 less junkie to have to give a needle or a pipe to....and not to mention 1 less junkie to break into your car while your out for dinner downtown..

I agree sir.

It's great that the city cares for these people, but when you're providing such services to them, eventually more and more of the users will head over here. What happens then? the amount of homeless and/or addicts will slowly decrease around the country and it will seemingly have less priority as a country wide issue.

This should be a country wide initiative as opposed to having it all solely in Vancouver.

Yes I know this won't have such a profound impact that the world will be beautiful once again, but I am just not a fan of Vancouver always being the one who tests these programs, while as the rest of the country sits back with no impact whether it succeeds or fails.

let's quit our jobs go on the street and let the government give us free crack pipes :drunk:
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what don't you get about clean crack pipes preventing disease? crackheads.. not sharing pipes? cause they're free?

i don't support crackheads just as much as you do, but fact is there will ALWAYS be drug users. fact two is that they cost a LOT more money to fix up if they contract diseases through the sharing of crack pipes, as opposed to the cost of giving out free pipes.

this is canada. those crackheads may be useless to society but they are still a citizen of our country and the government has a responsibility to help them AS WELL AS try and limit our expenditure on them. ie cutting down on their hospital visits through a cheaper harm reduction plan. this is what separates us from third world countries.

and for the people comparing this with gambling addicts - how does that even compare? gambling addicts don't pose nearly as large of an economical burden to SOCIETY, sure they may pose as one to themselves and their family when they gamble all their money away, but not nearly as much to taxpayers as crackheads going to the hospital. if anything they contribute to our economy by providing casinos with revenue. i'll have to look it up but i'm PRETTY sure some of that revenue goes back to the city as well.

I guess the idea makes sense...but here's why it annoys me.

It's not just free crack pipes. It's free patches for smokers. It's free housing for the poor, and the fact that people will continuously protest and yell and scream if you don't build more free housing. It's the fact that up until the last election, the Federal liberals were wanting free child care. I hope they learned their lesson on that one.

I get that we are more socialist than the US, but do we need to emulate europe? Because that seems to be working out wonderfully for them.

I want less people with their hands out to government, not more. I fully believe in universal health, as its something that everyone needs and everyone should have access to. I may pay for someone's cat scan, but eventually, I'll have a heart attack and it will even out. It will never even out for me here. I'm never going to go and claim my free crack pipe.

It is so frustrating to see us creating more people dependent on hand outs.

Crack isn't an intravenous drug and therefore, one would think the spread of disease is low. Do I care if they pass the herp around? :heckno:

Also, what about the side effects of crack? heart-attack, seizures, respiratory diseases, skin sores, etc...what is the cost of treating that? How is providing crack pipes helping that aspect?

You know what would save us money and not drain the health care system?! not having crack heads!

Having personal experience with a building in that area right before the Olympics a real estate "insider" knew that alot of low income housing in that area would try to convert to serve a different client base for the olympics. However the city promptly stopped this by putting 50k per room permits to make it not feasible for people to kick all the bums out and clean up the buildings.
So a guy comes around and just starts buying them up left right and center he had at least 10+ buildings. He then applies for permits for all the buildings, the city shits itself at the possibility of 3000+ bums on the street for the olympics. Then he sells them back to the city and promptly doubles or triples his net worth.

Apparently, the crack pipe/spreading disease thing works like this: Some of the crack smokers get open sores on their lips, which may allow contaminated blood as well as saliva to get on the pipe. Then when another user smokes crack from the same pipe, they can potentially get a disease from the first one who contaminated the pipe.

Yeah, people can say what they want about how free drugs and things are helping out addicts, but I don't agree. There are other places in the world that have other ways of dealing with these people in a much more effective manner, if you know what I'm saying...

I say round em all up, throw em on a ferry and dump them on some little island where nobody lives. Give them all the free needles they want and they can fight over whatever crack or heroine they managed to bring over.

I'm all for giving people a 2nd chance if they want it. Some people in the downtown east side have just fallen on bad luck and it would be nice to give them a full time job and turn their live around so they'll never end up down there again.

But it's all the ones who have no intention of turning their life around or contributing to society. Why should they get free handouts when all they're doing is killing themselves, while the average joe hard working person has to pay for everything themselves and gets taxed up the ass. I dunno something doesn't seem right to me.

i think you guys are over looking the fact that the number of junkies isnt finite.

new junkies are created everyday. you could become a junkie. your kid could be a junkie. your uncle, your friend. your classmate. whoever.

u can ship em all of or kill em all or whatever, but a small % of the population will become junkies and then what... kill them all again? lol why don't we just kill all humans then we'll have no problems.

junkies were all once normal people, none of them just woke up one day and said to themselves... "hey i think im gonna be a junkie".

becoming a junkie is like farting in public or burping at the dinner table... it's rude, you never intended it, but for whatever reason, you're doing it and you don't even remember how you got there. it's a slow and progressive thing.

how many potheads do you guys know? how many of those potheads do u think woke up one day and said to themselves, "imma be a pothead!"

how many of you have been so sloshed at a gathering, and at the beginning of the night you didn't even plan to drink? imagine it like that, but way more progressive. you don't feel it, you don't notice it.

it's like that potbelly you've got growing in your midsection. or those thunder thighs.
you didn't choose for it to happen, nor did it happen over night. but it's there.

killing all the fat people in the world ain't gonna get rid of fat people forever, ya get what i mean?

As a TOTAL unrelated item in this thread...

The whole rentals for olympics thing was total crap. A friend was looking for an apartment in North Van a month before the olympics. She says, its $300 or whatever a week until february, then its $800 a week, and then we sign a normal lease.

Um...:heckno: Get fucked was his answer.

A building I worked in dt was already set up as a long-stay hotel, so it would be easier to clear out for olympics. Had all these plans to make all these changes to accomodate it and...nothing. It wasn't worth keeping half the building empty for months waiting for a couple of weeks of high rent.

At least this guy you were talking about had a plan to make some money off of it.

Global BC | Pilot program gives free alcohol to alcoholics in hopes of turning their lives around

"
A pilot program in Vancouver is doing something that will probably raise eyebrows: giving free alcohol to alcoholics.

Eight clients are involved in the program, chronic alcoholics who would otherwise normally cycle through jails or hospitals many times throughout the year.

The program provides wine, vodka and beer to participants in varying doses, free of charge, every hour for twelve hours.

In addition to alcohol, they are provided with food, clothing, shelter and medical care.

The program is run by Vancouver Coastal Health at a social housing building on Station Street near the Downtown Eastside. The building is managed by the Portland Housing Society, who also operates the safe injection site on Hastings Street.

For the past 15 years, client 56-year-old Wesley Delorme has been battling alcohol addiction to mouthwash.

“I might have three or four bottles of mouthwash a day,” said Delorme.

He said he drank the mouthwash to combat feelings of loneliness, but he began to notice troubling physical symptoms including memory loss and skin problems.

Vancouver Coastal Health says the program saves money and helps addicts turn their lives around.

“We are already paying for the adverse consequences of this (alcoholism),” said Dr. Ronald Joe of Vancouver Coastal Health.

“Our worst client goes to emergency every three days,” he added.

“When the cost on the system is being straddled with clients in this situation, we need a different approach.”

Several other residents at the social housing building are not happy that the program is being administered in their building’s common room.

“It’s frustrating to come home and not be able to use the resources that are available, like our computer lab or laundry facilities,” said resident Brody Williams.

About 80 residents live at the Station Street building.

Williams and some other residents are asking for the program to be re-located.

Mark Townsend of the Portland Housing Society said the space where the program is administered is designed for a variety of uses.

Delorme said if it wasn’t for the program, he “would probably be downtown buying Listerine again.”



Read it on Global News: Global BC | Pilot program gives free alcohol to alcoholics in hopes of turning their lives around "

You guys need to understand drugs isn't a fixable problem. Every city on earth has drug users. Rather than trying to fix the impossible, we should concentrate on cutting our losses as a society through programs like this, through saving money from health care with clean paraphernalia and using that money to educate kids, teenagers, and young adults about the dangers of crack.
Don't you think that's the better approach as opposed to some of your retarded "throw them all in jail" plans? Do you even know how expensive it is to put someone in jail?

So, how do I go about getting this free alcohol?
I mean shit, my taxes are going towards it, might as well get my own share.

That would be super annoying and I do like the fact that it impacts others.

Believe it or not, I have fairly liberal views with is comes to social assistance. It is there for a reason and there are thousands of people who NEED it and use it appropriately. An old friend's mother was on social assistance for years after she escaped an abusive marriage. She was a single mother of 3 and going to school. As soon as she graduated and became a nurse, she was off it and is now very successful. I imagine that if it was her in the situation, she would not be impressed coming home with her small children after school to be surrounded by a bunch skiddy drunks waiting for their next free drink.

We have a system built to help people...and I am okay with it to a point. I don't like it when the pendulum swings so far in the other direction and I don't think we need to supply these people with their vices.

Sure every city but when the whole country chooses you as the drug dumping grounds......

This thread inspired me to write a short story. Thanks guys Here's the idea(super duper rough shortened draft)

so we have this older crackhead living in east vancouver. one day he goes to a safe injection site to get his pipe and he meets his daughter from when he was a legit dude... She is now a crackwhore and she utterly hates him. Feeling disgusted, he tries to clean his life up. But his addiction and his past demons keep him coming back to the drug. But his urge to clean up his life and eventually clean up his daughters life pulls him through. Eventually his daughter forgives him and he gets a job. But the addiction continues and he loses the job and his daughter gets brutally beaten. While in the hospital, the father tries to talk to his daughter but she is again mad at him and disowns him yet again. In a fit of rage he again destroys his life. Haven't really come up with an ending. It has a lot of different paths it can take. I'd probably throw in a positive role model to aid the father as well as some "Street friends" for both characters that would influence them both negatively and positively. Maybe have the father getting better and forgetting about his daughter? As she doesn't want to be saved just yet?

Addiction is something one would never understand unless they have been through it themselves.
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Difficult to write about what you don't know. Not every story needs to be "true", but needs a basis in something that relates. You'll find it difficult to capture the emotion of being a father(if you aren't), or a drug addicted user if you've never been.

pot and crack are 2 whole different levels man.. pot doesn't chemically make you addicted to it unlike crack and I always plan to get sloshed :lol