May 28th, 2008, 9 Comments »
This morning Tom twittered about a recent decision by the BC Supreme Court on Insite, Vancouver’s controversial safe-injection site:
Supporters are pleased about a B.C. Supreme Court decision regarding Insite, a supervised safe-injection facility in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, while critics are disappointed the bigger issues remain unresolved.
In a 60-page ruling Tuesday, Justice Ian Pitfield gave Insite an exemption from Canada’s drug laws until the end of June 2009.
‘Critics’ is a bit generous, as the article only cites Vancouver police union president Tom Stamatakis. Apparently the Vancouver police department supports the project, but the union doesn’t.
Regardless of what you think about heroin addicts or the ‘war on drugs’, Insite makes so much sense. Let’s get callous for a second, and consider the savings in healthcare costs alone. There have been over 500 overdoses (PDF) over a two-year period at Insite (with zero fatalities). On sight site medical staff dealt with six in ten of those, and only one in ten required hospitalization. The cost of the facility over that period was $1 million. How many of those 450 overdose cases would otherwise have ended up in a costly hospital visit? And how much does each prevented fatality save the government?
Insite’s website cites (argh!) a whole suite of benefits (with references) to addicts, the community and the bottom line.
I looked, and couldn’t find any evidence-based criticisms of the facility. Instead, there’s just silly rhetoric from the moral high ground. When Insite opened, an official in the Bush administration called it ’state-sponsored suicide’. Insite just works. It’s a cost-effective, harm-reductive health facility. I’m glad that our provincial Supreme Court found in favour in project–I trust our federal government will see things the same way.
9 Comments »
March 13th, 2008, 8 Comments »
Living abroad teaches you a lot. It also teaches you how little you know, and forces you to re-examine long-held assumptions.
One of these assumptions is about poverty. My general assumption about poverty used to go like this:
Most people in the West are rich. Most people in the developing world are the suffering poor.
Broadly speaking, I perceived people as dirt poor, middle class or rich.
A few experiences have made me question these assumptions:
- Reading Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety, which postulates that our thinking about rich and poor changed with the rise of democracy and the Industrial Revolution.
- Listening to some BBC radio documentaries about people surviving (or not surviving) on a dollar a day.
- Living in Malta and Morocco, and seeing how the average person lives in these countries.
In rural Morocco or Malta, people don’t have much. They own their own small house. They might have some sheep or cows. In Morocco, they probably have a bike, and in Malta they have an old car. They almost definitely have a cell phone. They probably have a television, or know somebody who does. If they’re farmers, they have fields to tend. If they live in town, they might own a tiny shop.
Their basic needs are usually met, but they’re not driving a 2008 Mini Cooper and their kids aren’t playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl on their Wii.
I’ve been back in Vancouver for a few days now, and had fresh eyes for Vancouver’s homeless problem. I’ve seen the occasional person sleeping rough in a doorway, and addicts, dressed in filthy old clothes, wandering around like zombies. How much do these people have? The contents of their shopping cart?
We were walking around the old, nearly abandoned kasbah in Agdz. A few people still live there in crumbling adobe buildings, and they’re seriously poor. I gave this girl two dirhams–25 Canadian cents. That would buy two loaves of bread, or about a dozen oranges.
A young guy asked for me change on Granville Street the other day. I didn’t give him anything. I never do, because we give to the Union Gospel Mission every year instead (that’s an unexpected search result).
On Gozo, there were no beggars or homeless people. In Morocco, the only beggars were the very old (here’s one) and a couple of young kids. In Vancouver, they’re young men and women.
Who’s More Impoverished?
Who’s more impoverished? Before my year away, I’d have definitely picked the rural Moroccan. Now I’m not so sure.
The Moroccan lives among his peers who, more or less with the same level of wealth. The homeless Canadian lives among veritable towers of gold and conspicuous consumption, but can’t have any of it.
Who would I rather be? Again, I’m not sure.
I think the question I’m orbiting here is: who is happier? I’ve got not grounds to speculate, but I’m guessing it’s not the homeless Vancouverite. That leads to a bigger question: is it better to live simply and be happy?
At the moment, that’s all I’ve got. I’d like this to be a cohesive little essay featuring a parable and carefully-craft conclusion, but I haven’t worked it out yet. I clearly don’t know enough, or understand enough about the hands that these Moroccans, Maltese and Vancouverites have been dealt. As such, it’s just food for thought (that anybody can afford).
8 Comments »
May 25th, 2007, 1 Comment »
Well, it ain’t no Desktop Tower Defense (to which poor, unsuspecting Jeremy got addicted), but you may find you enjoy Juggler, a simple but tricky flash game. Work less, play more.
UPDATE: Er, whoops. Link included, so that you can actually play the game.
1 Comment »
