Not content to lose statewide running against Seattle, Senator Miloscia is now opposing safe injection sites. Here’s a press release about it. This is a month old, but I haven’t done a metacommentary piece in a while. Since it just passed out of committee (third item), now is as good a time as any to get back to it.
Sen. Mark Miloscia introduced legislation Monday that would ban the creation of heroin-injection sites in Washington cities and counties. King County has proposed creating two county-operated locations where heroin and other illegal narcotics may be consumed “legally” under medical supervision.
I’m pretty sure it’s not actually legal, since that’s not something a county can do. As such, I’m not sure why it’s in quotes. Who you quoting? There must be a better way to say that. Here are a few off the top of my head:
– without fear of arrest
– quasi-legally
– it’s-really-not-legal,-y’all
– the-legal-status-of-the-drug-use-isn’t-actually-the-issue
– illegally
In any case there will be doctors around in case they have overdoses. They’ll probably refer them to treatment if they think they can, like they do in Vancouver:
Through Insite, clients develop trusting relationships with our health care and social workers, making them more likely to pursue withdrawal management (detox), addiction counselling and other addiction treatment services.
Anyway, back to Senator Miloscia’s month old press release. I don’t know what I’m doing either.
“We must stop the push for decriminalization of drugs,” said Miloscia, R-Federal Way. “Standing idly by while addicts abuse illegal drugs is not compassionate, and it does not solve the problem.”
That’s the fucking plan: To stand idly by. To just hire people to fuck around on their phones while people shoot up. They’ll whistle a tune that they half remember from their youth. Maybe look up passively from time to time and give a thumbs up in the direction of the addicts before turning back to Instagram.
It won’t be harm reduction and redirection of people to treatment where possible. It won’t be making sure that people don’t pass around dirty needles. It’s just sitting idly.
His legislation is a direct response to a report issued by the Heroin and Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force established by King County and the city of Seattle. The task force recommended two locations within King County where drug users can use illegal narcotics under medical supervision. The county recently approved funding for two injection sites in its 2017-2018 budget.
The people King County put in charge of this unanimously said it’s a piece of how we deal with the problem. But what if a grandstanding state senator decided his plan of do fuck all* was better?
Last year Miloscia toured Insite Coastal Health in Vancouver, Canada, the first supervised drug-consumption site in North America, to study the issue further.
He will proceed to say nothing about what he learned there for the rest of the press release. Instead he’ll take us home with a misleading statistic.
“Canada’s safe-injection site has completely failed and overdoses have skyrocketed,” Miloscia added. “We must focus our time, money and resources on treatment options that get people off illegal drugs, not encourage drug abuse.”
Overdoses are up in Vancouver, it’s true, and it’s tragic. They’re also up in lots of places where there aren’t safe injection sites. The reason seems to be fentanyl and other agents cut into heroin.
The Globe and Mail reports that overdose deaths rose to 914 during 2016. In contrast, there were 510 overdose deaths in 2015. It’s the province’s worst overdose rate in the 30 years it’s been keeping records.
In Seattle, KIRO 7 reports that the Seattle Fire Department has responded to 2,677 overdoses since 2014.
Canadian officials are blaming much of the rise on the inclusion of fentanyl, which is a synthetic opiate that can be cut into heroin. It is cheaper than heroin, yet much more potent, and can lead to overdoses. Fentanyl is suspected to be a factor in the recent surge in overdose deaths in Seattle, as well. What’s worse, is that another synthetic drug, carfentanil, has been found to have been mixed into B.C.’s heroin last fall. It is used as a large animal tranquilizer, and is cut into heroin for the same reasons as fentanyl. Though, it is even more potent.
Call me a dirty hippie if you want, but it seems like safe injection sites would be better places to test for fentanyl than in a hotel room. Or an abandoned lot near your dealer’s house. Or on your bathroom floor while your kids are playing in the next room.
* On Twitter, he says he wants to get addicts “real help” and that’s fine in and of itself. The state, counties, and cities, should have more treatment programs, public and private. It will surprise exactly 0 of you to learn that the rest of this press release has nothing about how he would get addicts help. His press releases page has nothing about how he would do that. He hasn’t sponsored any bills to get addicts the help they need.**
** At least as far as I could tell from the titles. God knows, I wasn’t going to get into the weeds on every bullshit bill he’s sponsored this session.
Im ok with safe injection sites, so long as they are placed right next to Carls house.
And people wonder why Seattle is a paradise for vagrants, criminals, and junkies….lolz.
@1 As a morally defective and mentally decrepit troll, naturally you would ask, “What would Jesus do?”, and then do the opposite.
The War on Drugs is just a futile enterprise. Legalize all drugs, tax their sale, and use the money to help those drug users who wish to be helped. Some people can’t be saved from drug use, so they will eventually be out of the picture.
More dead Trump voters.
This is a problem?
“We must stop the push for decriminalization of drugs,”
Legalization of cannabis won statewide, Miloscia.
You did not.
Cry us a river, loser.
Typical conservative response.
Looks at a problem. Looks at every effort to solve the problem over the last 20-30 years. Sees data that a problem isn’t being solved.
Solution! More of the same efforts that have failed over the last 20-30 years because THIS TIME it will work!
“The war on drugs is winnable. I swear. I believe it in my heart that if we lock people up other people will stop using and providing drugs. If we let the drug users die there will never be any more drug users. It is the only reasonable conclusion.” Mark Miloscia, or words to that effect.
Hey Miloscia, you loser!
Do you know who else tried to stop the push for decriminalization of drugs?
Seattle’s former City Attorney, Tom Carr:
The numbers came in at 8:17 p.m.; Carr was losing by 23 points. That chasm would spread to 28 points by the time the election was certified. Nobody could recall a sitting politician in Seattle losing by such a wide margin — nearly two-to-one.
How about you follow your fellow loser into well-deserved obscurity, Miloscia?
You loser.
Tensor wants to make heroin legal so he can get his high without fear of getting arrested. The real losers are people who use drugs. End of story.
Tensor wants to make heroin legal so he can get his high without fear of getting arrested.
I’d need a chronic diet of harder drugs than that before I’d write as poorly as you do here, loser.
The real losers are citizens who allow losers like Miloscia and Carr to keep spending tax money on loser policies.
That’s why Seattle isn’t the loser that Miloscia, Carr, and you are, you loser.
Again I say,
More dead Trump voters.
This is a problem?
The numbers don’t lie. Only Trailer Trump Americans do. The Washington counties with double digit opiate overdose rates are Asotin, Chelan, Clallam, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grays Harbor, Island, Lewis, Mason, Pierce, Skagit, and Snohomish.
I believe in securing for hillbillies unfettered access to high fructose corn syrup, yard trampolines, powerful guns, and powerful opiates. It’s what they want. America owes them that much! MAGA!
“Call me a dirty hippie if you want”
Dirty hippies didn’t hate cars.
Yeah tensor you’re right. Let’s make everything legal. Fuck it that way Seattle can look like even more of a shithole with its vagrants bums and junkies and drug zombies. If that’s the kind of City you want to live in have at it. Maybe you can sit next them on that little choo-choo that you ride to work and back.
If you have to wonder why Seattle looks like such a shithole, just look in the mirror it’s because of Voters like you
10
Called it.
Fuck it that way Seattle can look like even more of a shithole
Spoken like a real expert in “shitholes”.
Don’t stop now, girlfriend. You’re just getting to the best corn!
Maybe instead of being a dirty hippie, Carl is really a dirty alt-right left-wing fascist-socialist!
“CPAC organizer denounces ‘alt-right’ as ‘left-wing fascist group’”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/.....li=BBnb7Kz
Yeah tensor you’re right. Let’s make everything legal.
So, do you support that loser Miloscia, and his loser policy of wasting taxpayer money? Yes or no? I call that you won’t give us a straight, yes-or-no answer, loser.
…Seattle can look like even more of a shithole with its vagrants bums and junkies and drug zombies.
You’ve been spending a lot of time with your fellow losers in the only part of Seattle you losers can still afford, eh?
Here’s the city *I* live in:
As the city transforms with taller and taller buildings, Seattle this summer had 58 construction cranes reshaping the skyline — more than any other city in the country, according to recent data.
The city has more cranes than New York and San Francisco combined. It has twice as many as Chicago, Washington, D.C., or Portland.
Planned Parenthood is offering back room space in which pre-teens can have unprotected sex without having to risk being caught by their parents. Abortionists always on hand just in case someone gets knocked up.
@ 10
Again I say,
More dead Trump voters.
This is a problem?
My brother died of a drug overdose. I see no reason why we can’t let it happen to others. Stupidity should be painful.
Abortionists always on hand just in case someone gets knocked up.
Because it’s physically possible to perform an abortion in the minutes after unprotected intercourse.
Your knowledge of anatomy & physiology continues to amaze. Please do lecture us on how sheep’s bladders can be employed to prevent earthquakes.
19,
It’s just like I’ve been sayin’.
I don’t think he’s the kind of “doctor” he claims to be, if you know what I mean.
@17 Even if this were true, and not conjured from your hyperactive imagination, it would be your business how?
14
Hows your moms trailer elijah?
Called it
@18 “My brother died of a drug overdose. I see no reason why we can’t let it happen to others. Stupidity should be painful.”
Geez. Did you spit on his body, too? Blood doesn’t run very thick in your family.
We try and save people from themselves with laws. Take those laws away, then im cool with letting them rot and die. No tax money for treatment. Period.
You want it all legal? Fine….then no help from taxpayers when you fuck up and get addicted.
Life is about choices.
You want it all legal? Fine….then no help from taxpayers when you fuck up and get addicted.
Hey, loser, we decided that question back when we voted to legalize cannabis statewide. We voted to spend some of the resultant tax money on addiction treatment.
Too bad you’re such a total loser that you can’t even recognize how long ago you became a total loser.
Hey Miloscia, you loser!
Remember your proposal to stop Seatac and Seattle from raising our minimum wages?
Too bad for you: we voters statewide decided high minimum wages were such a great idea, we enacted I-1433 to raise them.
You were on that same statewide ballot.
That’s why you were such a loser In that election.
Your similar proposal, to prevent local jurisdictions to have safe sites, shows you’re still too much of a loser To understand why you’re such a loser, Miloscia.
25
You mean pothead losers like yourself?
Relying on other people to pay for your transportation….who da loser?
Good thing you got $15 an hour or you be livin in white center.
Who is the loser?
You aint shit bitch.
Dont worry tensor, us successful types will always carry the burden you losers put on us….for now.
Is tensor gonna have a “safe site” next to his apartment?
24,
I feel precisely the same way about farm subsidies, suburban pavement subsidies, state ferries, and golf.
@1,
i live Downtown so we have a disproportionate amount of social services. If the county thinks locating it near me woks best, that’s fine. I assume since you favor prisons as the solution, you want a prison built next to you?
30,
Shelton already has one, right?
29
Ya, because those are the same as drug addicts.
31
Yep….its where your pops lives.
30
Thats fine carl…hope youre liking the bum/junkie paradise you are creating.
Ya carl,
10 years ago you progressiives said “just give us $50 million a year and seattle will be a bumless paradise”…..here we are 10 years later, the bum problem is the worst in modern history, and your progressive mayor wants ANOTHER $55 million a year to “solve the probem”.
LOLZ
And idiots like you and tensor will hand over the duckets…tools.
And to answer your question…i would rather live next to a prison…at least then I know the criminals are locked up, instead of living next to a bunch of herion zombies and criminals roaming free…..
Relying on other people to pay for your transportation…
For the last twenty years, Sound Transit has been a winner at the polls. You are a loser.
Please learn the difference, loser.
@20, @23:
Although I initially responded as if @17 and @18 were actually the troll we all love, now I think those are some nym-jacker trying to parody right-wing beliefs.
The trouble is, our right wing in this country has become so completely unhinged from reality, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between what they claim to believe and obscene parody of what they claim to believe.
Then I noticed no overt misogyny in those two comments, and so figured it wasn’t really him, but who knows?
I dont pay ST taxes bitch….im 3 steps ahead of you socialists.
Oh….you thought I was gonna pay the new car tab fees? Wrong….all my cars are registered at an eastern wa address..
Suckas….always ahead of you….
Always…
Seems Attorney General Sessions is open to coming down hard on the legalization of marijuana in some states due to the opiate epidemic. So a certain Senator’s letter must have been effective as one reader seems to have been swayed by it. Yes all drugs should be decimalized, and people provided a safe place to use them. It was ok in the 1880’s only folks racism got in the way, All those Chinese people getting rich off the lotus flower. Can’t have that. So today it’s just not cool to have a place for people to enjoy the lotus flower. No place for opium dens in this here state of Washington.
Perhaps giving out cards about a really cool place to shoot up to addicts would introduce the Senator to the issue. His address being the location or really close to it. Look just give the addict a little for bus fare and maybe a cheese burger. Milocia fields forever will be the hippest place on the coast. If the Senator is a little hopping mad that is just a bonus. Gotta get the addicts out of the city and into the hinterlands once in awhile. A few dead addicts whose deaths could have been prevented by a van set up to treat the addicts perhaps will bring the Senator around. If not when Jeff Sessions comes to visit just think of the wonders a bunch of addicts wondering about the grounds in a high could bring to the Milosia household and the nation. Can they spin that addicts death in Jeff Sessions arms into hysteria about our nations out of control drug problem and keep them private prisons up and operating, or could an addict cause old Jeff’s heart to grow 10 sizes?
Meanwhile the measure will probably pass both houses, better push the Governor to veto. If not give the addicts cards to Olympia. A few dying addicts on the Capital grounds could create a special session of the legislature about the wonders of having safe sites.
@6 And none of his donors have anything to do with the private prison complex? I think we are being fleeced.
@12 Look you just need a coke and a smile. It used to have the real thing only weak women succumbed and beam addicts not white protestant manly anglo-saxons. There is nothing sexist or racist about our drug policies. Time to hoist the flagon boys, keep them women out of here!
@16 Yep Seattle the home of the original skid row. Never a beautiful city. Usually a pretty ugly one. Just got lucky with some savvy spin during the Klondike and became the west coasts New York with only San Fran vying for the title, but Seattle bested San Fran over the Klondike. Still skid row survived and spread during the Klondike, had to get sailors for the ships to Alaska. Sailors avoided Seattle for decades due to its unseemly reputation.
@24 Really? How about when it’s Uncle Sam as the armed forces hospital or VA getting them hooked in the first place?
Or someone has back surgery and the Dr. subscribes opioids and the patient gets hooked and the Dr is unable to put in place a proper treatment to get the patient off the opioids.
Or the drug company tells Dr’s our drug is not addictive.
@26 You do realize if his supporters think his position is right he stays in office which makes him a winner. Not a loser. Heck he might even run for the House or if he gets a big rep run the US Senate. I do think one or both of our State Senators are more vulnerable than most would like to admit on this site. So from his perspective he’s doing the right things and he’s a winner. Whether or not his bill passes. He just wants to make sure you spell his name right in all your bitching. Got to hand it to him he’s doing some good politicking here.
@28 Not in his back yard, but definitely in yours.
@47 Oops I was wrong. Unusual for prisons to be in our downtown areas in the states. So do you want that prison next to your place Nagan?