On any given day in our beautiful city you are likely to come across a homeless addict, no matter what neighborhood you live in. Their drug of choice is usually heroin, which makes a certain amount of sad sense because it provides the biggest bang for your buck and has become far too easy to obtain.
Now you know the problem; there are homeless people using heroin in every corner of the city, the solution is much less succinct.
The majority of leaders on Seattle’s heroin task force (yes, we have a heroin task force) are pushing for what they call a “safe consumption site,” where heroin addicts can continue to do heroin but this time they will have medical supervision and a safe location provided by your hard earned dollars. They claim that this would be a good idea because “the city would see a lot fewer syringes on the street and a lot fewer people dying from using drugs.” (Seattle Times)
To that I say: duh. Of course there would be fewer syringes out and about and fewer overdoses if we endorsed a safe haven of heroin use, is that really a viable solution? I can’t seem to follow our task force’s thought process that led to the conclusion that we ought to use tax payer money to make sure addicts users are safe while shooting heroin between their toes.
I cannot claim to be an expert on the subject of heroin use but it seems to me that there are inherent risks that go along with that decision. These include but unfortunately are not limited to; a life of poverty, overdosing, dying, and being looked down upon by the general populace and I don’t see why we should take any efforts to alleviate these consequences.
I do somewhat see the reasoning behind the argument that these sites would be beneficial in shielding the general public from seeing this epidemic actually take place in front of them on a daily basis but I really believe that the negatives far outweigh the positives even on this point of contention. Shielding people from the issues that surround them only makes them forget that the issue really exists, and in turn won’t help our city address the real issue at hand. If this were a concern of public safety there would be vastly different dialogue surrounding this topic because the reality of the situation is homeless addicts rarely cause any quantifiable harm to Seattle’s citizens and our money would be better spent trying to attack this issue an attempt to stop it, not condone it to rage on in hiding.
