this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
33 points (94.6% liked)

Canada

10304 readers
602 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
otter@lemmy.ca
mp3@lemmy.ca
otter@piefed.ca
mp3@piefed.ca
33
Opinion: Ontario must resist move to 'forced treatment' for drug users (ottawacitizen.com)
submitted 10 months ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
5 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Historically, models of isolation and violence inflict deep harm on already targeted peoples: Indigenous, Black, racialized, disabled, criminalized people and drug users. Studies show that forcibly institutionalizing people creates worse outcomes than other forms of support. People already struggle to access voluntary treatment, counselling and bed-based services. This type of incarceration often reduces tolerance to substances, increasing the risk of fatal overdoses upon release, particularly when community-based supports are lacking.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hobwell@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

Well said:

We call for policies that are consistent, evidence-based, and based on harm reduction rather than vilifying drug users with a false morality framework.

If the province and municipalities want to address the murderous toxic drug supply, they should provide a safer supply and expand supervised consumption sites.

If the province and municipalities want to address the housing needs of the thousands of people who cannot afford a place to live, they should prioritize protecting tenant rights and explore non-market housing solutions, such as investments in social housing.

We cannot hide the problems we are faced with in Ontario or warehouse people to pretend we’ve solved underlying issues; we must highlight and challenge systems of neglect, exploitation and harm.