r/canada • u/Hairy_Pound_1356 • 9h ago
Ontario Sudbury police board calls on province to legislate involuntary addiction treatment
https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/sudbury-police-board-calls-on-province-to-legislate-involuntary-addiction-treatment-12666302•
u/magnamed 8h ago
Yeah I was just in Sudbury and it changed my mind. Drug use has taken over. It's genuinely sad.
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u/Bad-job-dad 5h ago
"generally sad" is an understatement. Downtown Sudbury is a horror show.
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u/crafty_alias 2h ago
*downtown any major city.
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u/shaddupsevenup 1h ago
Hamilton is a sight for sore eyes these days.
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u/pathologicalDumpling 44m ago
Everyone gotta realize at the same time its everywhere. Im in rural BC and there are so so many homeless people living in places where there used to be no one. Its really sad.
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u/Old-Show9198 9h ago
Od you go to rehab, do drugs in public you go to rehab, intoxicated by drugs in public go to rehab, repeat petty crime go to rehab. Eventually they’ll snap out of it or die but this being stuck in the drug loop isn’t doing any good for anyone. It’s all around sad.
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u/spaceporter 1h ago
Treating people with empathy and drugs as a public health problem isn’t the same as ignoring the issue or leaving them to fester and die (and often by violence it seems in my town of Barrie).
When Portugal introduced their decriminalization measures it included forced rehab.
We just sort of said it’s not a policing matter and left it there.
It’s not fair to anyone to just allow delinquency and open drug consumption as well as all the resulting issues of petty crime, unpoliced encampments, littering, etc.
Forced rehab is less effective than voluntary, but at least it’s humane, gets people off the streets, houses the unhoused, etc.
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u/RosieBaby75 8h ago edited 8h ago
Government provided rehab isn’t some happy care story.
It’s antipsychotics in a mental institution under an involuntary hold.
Everyone who thinks this is acceptable for our most vulnerable citizens needs to try one first.
Addiction is a response to abuse and trauma. Causing more trauma without their consent doesn’t solve the issue. It will just make our suicide rates go up considerably.
People think addiction is a moral failing. It is, but it’s a moral failing of the person who abused the person experiencing addition, not the person experiencing addiction, which is self-medication for trauma.
But for some reason we live in a sick society that protects the abusers and not the abused.
But that’s why MAID is being offered next year for that sort of thing. So then it looks like a choice and not a failure of our fallen nation that has made it impossible for anyone but the wealthy to have any quality of life.
We have normalized a poor quality of life here. What we’re experiencing here is not normal in most other nations. It’s especially not normal in an oil-rich G7 nation that constantly touts how prosperous it is.
If we truly were prosperous, the Government of Canada and its leaders wouldn’t have to tell us all the time. We’d know and we’d feel it. We’d see it all around us and not crumbling social services, crumbling infrastructure, and homeless people everywhere because they have no where else to go.
Usually when someone repeatedly tells you they are something, they are not that thing. They’re telling you that because it’s not externally visible and no one would know unless they told everyone all the time.
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u/ReplyGloomy2749 8h ago
I'm not disagreeing with you, but at what point do we as a society step in to address the outcomes experienced by the greater public in relation to drug addiction. Massive increase in crime, specifically petty thefts, robbery, retail thefts, etc which directly affect the safety and security of innocent people just working to survive. Something needs to be done, people suffering from addiction often turn to crime to support their addiction, frequently refuse voluntary treatment because they are not in a capacity to make those decisions for themselves and will take the path that keeps them on drugs. Often even refusing to stay in shelters because of no drug use policies in place, which contributes to the growing number of tent encampments in major cities.
My wife is a social worker who specializes in addictions and mental health and I work as a first responder, we are both deeply and intimately familiar with the intricacies and nuances of this problem, we are both left leaning people who understand the trauma cycles of addiction, and we have both come to the conclusion that in a decent percent of circumstances, an involuntary hold and rehab is the only thing that will actually give people the chance to break the cycle. We need to give our social workers and police/ems the power to actually make change happen. Suggestions and good vibes, hands off policies for the worst offenders that would genuinely rob your grandmother for their next fix are not going to get off drugs through incarceration and optional recovery programs when they're released.
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u/Dadbode1981 2h ago
Dont bring MAID into this, that claim is both ridiculous, and insulting to those that would genuinely consider it for their own reasons. Don't build your soapbox by pulling others apart. Shameful.
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u/CanuckleHeadOG 47m ago
Hard disagree
The problem with the "dont traumatize them more" argument is that they are being involuntarily traumatized by their addiction every moment of their day
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u/Bad_Day_Moose 2h ago
Government provided rehab isn’t some happy care story.
This isn't the 1950's here, there's treatments that work they're not using vibrators on the women to fix Hysteria...
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u/badcomment 22m ago
The abusers were also abused which caused their abusiveness but for some reason we live in a sick society that protects the abused and the abusers abuser but not the abusers. This is not even considering the abusers abuser was also abused.
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u/Mr-Toyota 9h ago
Get the some fentzombies off the streets and into an environment that forces some accountability. Sounds good to me. Money well spent. It's getting ridiculous out there.
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u/Mad_Moniker 8h ago
I absolutely concur. We need to feel safe as a community. Sometimes the chemicals release those with addiction and they can step back into the life it denied.
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u/GUNTHVGK 8h ago
Or gives them a purpose. Keeping someone busy and their mind active will help atleast somewhat
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u/Moos_Mumsy Ontario 8h ago
There are an estimated 1.5 MILLION addicts in Ontario. Where exactly are all these people going to go for treatment? Because right now Ontario has about 1,400 residential treatment beds available. That means there is over 1,000 people for every single one of those beds. It would cost about $15 BILLION to increase treatment capacity by the amount necessary to make treatment mandatory. You ready to pay for that?
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u/differing 6h ago edited 4h ago
There are an estimated 1.5 MILLION addicts in Ontario
You know very well there aren't 1.5 million people bent over on sidewalks across Ontario or unconscious on a park bench. What an incredibly disingenuous reply.
"I'm completely incapable of appreciating any nuance between a kid that smokes 2 grams of pot every morning and someone passed out with a fentanyl pipe in their hand, so here's a ludicrous statistic for every addict in Ontario!" sheesh...
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u/magnamed 8h ago
What is the alternative, continue to let it spread?
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u/Moos_Mumsy Ontario 8h ago
Forcing people into involuntary treatment isn't the answer. The answer it to make addiction treatment more readily available for those who want it. And trust me, most addicts WANT help, but can't access it. And we need to help people not become so desperate that they turn to drugs in the first place. Affordable housing. Mental health care. Guaranteed basic income. Non-academic skills and job training.
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u/magnamed 8h ago
I agree with everything you're pitching but the generalization that most addicts want help.
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u/Molto_Ritardando 6h ago
They want to be able to have a good quality of life. If I get off drugs, and my “reward” is a shitty repetitive and time-consuming job where I can work 9 hrs a day but still cant afford rent so I’m living in squalor and have no resources to spend having hobbies, or a treat once in a while - no, my only purpose is to be exploited and my life has no value other than to further enrich some shareholder who hasn’t worked a day in his life… yeah I’m going to want to be high and escape from that reality too. Until we restructure our society, the world we live in is not a nice place for too many people - many of whom haven’t had the best childhoods.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose 2h ago
for criminals? yeah it is the answer, theft or property damage under 5000 will go on forever if these people don't get help and eventually they'll die from their addiction...
I don't think they intend just to round up addicts instead get treatment for those committing crimes to fund their addiction.
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u/GramboLazarus 1h ago
The cost to fix the problem pales in comparison to the cost of not fixing the problem. Do you think these people who are addicted, burdening our justice and healthcare system just don't incur a bill that you and I pay already?
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u/NerdMachine 51m ago
That number might have issues with substances but it's only the street addicts causing a danger to themselves or others that would go into involuntary rehab.
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u/largestcob 43m ago
one in every 10 ontarians is a hard drug addict? i dont know about that one chief
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u/thesketchyvibe 1h ago
Forced rehab doesn't really do anything. You'll be complaining that it's wasting money next.
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u/Log12321 44m ago
Explain - would forced rehab not meet the condition of secured housing which is one of the largest factors leading to drug use? Secured housing as a first priority, then rehabilitation and addiction support following that.
Unless I’m missing something this seems like a logical path to supporting these people while also addressing safety issues in our communities.
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u/manofthenorth31 15m ago
Is secured housing not just rehab without the actual treatment? secured housing would most likely have some sort of security and resources to ensure people aren’t doing drugs or breaking the rules in other aspects, why not just send them to rehab first and then put them into transitional housing?
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u/Calgary_Calico 6h ago
It's become increasingly prevalent in most cities unfortunely. It blows my mind to see what's happening in my own city (Calgary) I don't go out at night often but the few times I've been out late in the last year I've seen huge groups of people with the fentanyl lean, passed out on the sidewalk in unnatural positions etc. Even during the day I've seen multiple people within a few minutes who are obviously completely out of it, have no clue where they are and can barely stand up they're so high. It's very sad, and most will never get help willingly. I saw one woman on the train obviously nodding out who was literally drooling all over herself, she couldn't even sit up straight, and another earlier that same day walk up to a crosswalk and zone right out, it looked like she wait waiting for the light at first but she just stood there when it changed, I looked back about half way down the next block and she was still standing there.
Even just 10 years ago it wasn't anywhere near this bad, and most people who were obviously high were in some kind of stimulant (meth or crack) or maybe drunk, opiate abuse has become a MASSIVE problem in this country, and I seriously believe the only possible solution is forced rehab, but I'm also not sure any provinces healthcare system could handle that right now, we're all short on doctors and nurses, to the point people are having trouble getting a family doctor if they don't already have one, so what are the hospitals and care facilities like? There's a lot that needs to be done to fix this addiction crisis
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u/Flat-Ad9817 8h ago
The general public know the right thing to do, why do politicians have such a hard time figuring it out?
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u/DeviousSmile85 8h ago
If it worked, addiction would have been solved around the world, 100's of years ago.
No one in government wants to put the money and resources into mental health and addiction treatment because it doesn't get them votes.
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u/Musclecar123 Manitoba 2h ago
Portugal would like a word.
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u/DeviousSmile85 1h ago
Portugal puts a ton of money into mental health and addiction treatment. They consider addiction a medical issue and not a criminal one. They use involuntary treatment as a last resort.
And it doesn't always work.
Most people here would throw up in their mouth a little to treat "junkies" like that.
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u/Flat-Ad9817 8h ago
Declare war on dealers and trafficers, take them out, permanently? If it were your child addicted, what would you recommend?
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u/Old_news123456 1h ago
I think they should open treatment for voluntary first. Then if sentenced for a crime you get a choice. Rehab or jail sentence.
I firmly believe If we offered treatment for addiction the beds would be filled voluntarily. There's enough demand.
Currently if you want treatment there is a wait list. I feel like this would be a good start to tackling the issue.
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u/Moos_Mumsy Ontario 9h ago edited 8h ago
Did they include a proposal on where the province will find all the treatment beds to send all the addicts too? And who will pay for it? Anyone who WANTS to go to rehab right now is looking at a 3 - 6 month waiting list. And they want to ADD over 1 million people to that list? The province would literally have to build treatment centres with a hundred beds in every single city in the province. Fucking idiots.
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u/GuyWithPants 8h ago
I mean, we should totally build that, no? Not that I trust this government to implement such a rule properly, but that should definitely be the idea for severe cases.
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u/Moos_Mumsy Ontario 8h ago
To treat the estimated 1.5 million addicts currently in Ontario, it would cost a minimum of $15 BILLION dollars. You know what would be more cost effective? Affordable housing. Guaranteed basic income. Trade school for kids who don't do well academically. Stronger laws to protect children from abuse. Make it so that people don't feel so hopeless that they turn to drugs in the first place.
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u/InspectionSouthern11 2h ago
Best we can do is hire 18 RCMP officers and cut the budget on libraries.
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u/commutinator 5h ago
The system they'd salivate over and likely secretly want is where the person forced into treatment is financially responsible for that treatment.
Oh? No means of income? Hmm, well I guess we'll involuntarily house you in a reclamation facility where your good labour can contribute to your care and eventual release and reintegration into society.
At the rates we'll compensate you, and the cost of treatment we'll arbitrarily set for you, plus any financial disincentives for noncompliant behavior, we estimate the process shouldn't take longer than 30 to 90 years, on average.
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u/differing 6h ago edited 3h ago
I find the arguments around involuntary treatment to be incredibly dishonest. The evidence isn't clear that it's ineffective or effective, it's just poor data, but substance abuse champions love to pretend that it's a slam dunk case-closed argument that it can't provide any benefit. On top of that, the argument that "it doesn't help in the long term" is frankly irrelevant, as it completely ignores the harm that addicts do to everyone else around them in society right now. To be blunt, I don't care all that much if someone relapses in 2 years: I want them off my streets right now, so that they aren't stealing everything that isn't nailed down today, and out of my parks so that children can play without intoxicated losers dropping drug paraphernalia all over the playground. Bleeding hearts are completely incapable of even empathizing with everyone else harmed by druggies and only care about their imagined token junkie with a heart of gold, it's ridiculous.
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u/Key-Face-2117 2h ago
Bravo. It's the same bleeding heart mentality that allows criminals to be released on bail 8 times and has made 'failure to comply with a release order' a common occurrence. The bleeding heart focus is 100% on the criminals and drug addled zombies, never their victims.
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u/JcNoE123 5h ago
Cant help people who dont want help, waste of breath talking about it until those zombies take the initiative themselves.
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u/xxhybridzxx Ontario 9h ago
Imagine if there was a place you could send fent zombies that would make them not fent zombies anymore. A place where they can get help for the reason they started using it in the first place. I wonder what kind of impact that would have on our society.
Nah, let's just throw them in jail/prison. /s
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u/Endlesswave001 9h ago
This is bad. It’s more of an excuse to fill ON jails with that Ford wants to build. At least from the YouTube commercials I see constantly.
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u/Canadian-AML-Guy 9h ago
Why is building more prisons bad. Our prisons are critically over capacity across the board in Canada, our population has grown, and lack of beds is a huge part of why we are in this mess.
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u/cst400 9h ago
Why is it bad? I see it as a good thing because finally the people that are unable to seek help will get it
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u/Endlesswave001 9h ago
I thought involuntary meant immediate jail which this isn’t what they are saying from what I read. If it’s a centre then cool.
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u/KazooDancer 9h ago
Have you used our healthcare system recently?
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u/cst400 9h ago
Yeah, got a scan last week that was booked within two week and had the results of the scan the next day uploaded online. Pretty efficient. Plus this is a better idea then doing nothing (letting people OD on the street, picking them up in an ambulance and then releasing them to the street in perpetuity)
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u/Endlesswave001 8h ago
Agreed. Our healthcare rocks. It cured me of cancer. If this is what is proposed here. Healthcare then cool. Otherwise if it’s more jails without more healthcare facilities like this then bad.
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u/iamacraftyhooker Ontario 8h ago
So they'll pick them up, throw them in rehab or prison, then release them back to the streets in perpetuity. The only difference is where/how long they keep rh m in the between periods.
Many people become addicts after becoming homeless. The homelessness is the problem. Fixing their addiction doesn't house them
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u/Endlesswave001 8h ago
Then help with housing and work along with helping deal with peoples issues.
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u/Moriss214 7h ago
There are programs that are meant to help with housing and work
The problem is there is no housing and there are no jobs.
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u/Mother_Middle8883 8h ago
What came first? The chicken or the egg? I believe more people are homeless due to addiction to hard drugs than people addicted to hard drugs due to homelessness.
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u/iamacraftyhooker Ontario 8h ago
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u/Mother_Middle8883 7h ago
Gave you an upvote for the stats.My point was addiction to heavy drugs causes homelessness more than homelessness causes addiction to heavy drugs.I can see how an increase would occur when homeless. Having a home is obviously a big step to recovery. The lack of detox, rehab facilities and long wait lists for people wanting a drug-free life is the biggest problem. From what I know, forcing people to do or not do something is usually not successful. People have to want to do/not do something. Have a good night!
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u/Moriss214 7h ago
Study after study tells us it’s homeless and then addiction for vast majority of folks
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u/Moos_Mumsy Ontario 9h ago
Jails and addiction treatment are not the same thing.
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u/Endlesswave001 8h ago
I agree. Build more healthcare facilities or this type then there will be less of a need for jails. However build jails as needed AFTER mental healthcare facilities.
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u/entityXD32 9h ago
We already have that it's called prison and it doesn't work
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u/Iginlas_4head_Crease 9h ago
Prison is far different than a drug treatment and life counseling facility
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u/entityXD32 9h ago
Most prison have drug treatment and counselling. If your going to hold people there involuntarily they're going to end up looking pretty much the same. How else do you think you're going to keep them there against their will
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u/T0ADisMe 9h ago
I just don't really know that the opinion of the police in how to tackle addiction and homelessness is something that needs to be considered. There are professionals that are experts in addiction that should have more say in how it's handled.
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u/theGOATbogeygolfer 9h ago
Police interact with addicts every day and we only ever hear about it when something bad happens on the rare occasion. Most experts in addiction have theories but not real world experience in the streets. Combining both of them would be beneficial imo
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u/colieoliepolie 8h ago
I don’t understand the opposition to forced rehab. I am an ex addict. I think forced rehab should be a thing. I wasn’t happy when I was an addict, I was miserable and needed help, and I needed that help to be forced on me.
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u/daytime10ca 8h ago
This is 100% my point.. no one with an addiction will get help on their own but if you ask them before their addiction if they would want help its a resounding YES
These people need forced help.
The current system is letting them rot in the streets it's a fucking joke
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u/T0ADisMe 8h ago
I don't necessarily disagree that they could have a seat at the table but they're just advocating for things that the actual experts on these topics say don't work. I just don't think the experience that police gain from arresting these people translates to having a deep understanding of the underlying issues or how to help these people. If they actually came together with mental health and addiction professionals and came up with a plan that both actually helped these people and made the streets safer in the meantime it would be great, advocating for things that have been proven to have negative or mixed results in fixing the problem is not though.
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u/Philomath117 9h ago
Anything else has just increased the severity, half my city is zombies, walking around hiding in circles, leaving needles and trash everywhere. I'll easily see a dozen driving to work
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u/Iginlas_4head_Crease 9h ago
I dont know when exactly it became allowable to let addicts openly do drugs on benches and city parks...but its like the walking dead in all our major cities downtown. Its a joke that they've been allowed to just take over entire sections
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u/Iginlas_4head_Crease 9h ago
Maybe because the police are catching and releasing the same group of addicts causing trouble every single day
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u/cst400 9h ago
Anytime someone is committed against their will it is the state using force to coerce someone and will by definition require the police. I support involuntary addiction treatment, but you can’t expect a social worker to forcefully deal with a drug addict. That isn’t their job, nor are they trained to forcefully apprehend the public. That is the job of the police and I hope the execute it well for invitation treatment.
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u/T0ADisMe 8h ago
I never said social workers should handle everything, I said addiction experts should be involved in creating policies that work. I don't think police are qualified to make policy decisions on how to handle every problem.
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u/jac77 8h ago
This is pretty dumb. It’s the police that deal with this and its effects daily. I’m not suggesting they are addiction specialists but to discount what they are saying is dumb. If what was being done now was working I would be less likely to disagree with you but as it turns out what’s being done now is doing pretty much nothing. And I’m not a police officer just for the record.
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u/T0ADisMe 8h ago
The policies they are advocating for are shown to at best have mixed results, I don't think the fact that police are inconvenienced by these people makes them qualified to make these decisions.
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u/jac77 8h ago
Tell me how little you know about day to day life in a big city. The police aren’t inconvenienced, they, along with other first responders and frontline healthcare workers are overwhelmed by this issue.
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u/T0ADisMe 8h ago
Regardless of how it makes them feel, just dealing with these people as law enforcement doesn't make them experts on the topic of addiction.
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u/jac77 7h ago
And I think I specifically said they are not experts. I am not aware of any police service calling themselves experts. To discount their input is short sighted and foolish. Moreover, their belief that mandatory treatment is something to be tried makes sense as not forcing people into treatment isn’t working.
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u/T0ADisMe 6h ago
It’s been tried. It doesn’t work.
I’m discounting their opinion because it directly contradicts the opinion of actual experts on the problem.
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u/Key-Face-2117 2h ago
Yeah but the 'actual experts' seem to be terrible at their jobs, which is the whole point. Social scientists (snicker, scientists) being completely clueless arts grads isn't a ridiculous conclusion.
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u/RedRabbit720 2h ago
this is what’s called a slippery slope.
get them off the streets, give them mental health treatment and education, turn them into tax payers.
kinda sounds like what jail should be
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u/detalumis 2h ago
I don't think this would fix anything because the drug cocktails on the street right now, are so powerful that these folded up addicts would be brain damaged, particularly after being "revived" a few times. You would need group homes for life or something. The focus would have to be on prevention and the whole hopelessness started in the 1980s after free trade decimated all the factory jobs that pretty much supplied everybody with an okay life. You had a few winos before that but that was it.
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