Canada

Yeah, shocking... People will use substances until they want to quit. Unless and until the addict makes that choice for themselves, nothing is going to change. The best you can do is change their circumstances so that they want to change their lives.

Honestly, these policies are 100% successful, if you consider their goal.

Forced treatment isn't intended to help people get clean. Nor is it intended to even keep them off the street.

The goal of forced treatment is to PUNISH people for using drugs. It is intended to hurt them, and drive them farther from a support network.

And at this, it is incredibly good.

All across the country our political leaders are getting behind coercive intervention

Has Singh called for this? Trudeau? Nah, this is a right-wing "blame, project, dehumanize, and profiteer off of victims" initiative.

Involuntary treatment (of already marginalized people) in for-profit 'health care centres,' backed by venture capitalists. This is some dystopian AF shit

If all we cared about was saving the lives of the already-addicted, all we'd have to do is prescribe medical-grade opioids of known dosage to anyone who says they're an addict, and the death rate would instantly plummet—not to zero, but to something around the much lower status quo from before the "epidemic" began, when prescription opioids were more easily available. Most of these people die because they're taking adulterated drugs, or drugs of unknown concentration that they can't dose properly. With a cheap, secure supply, they'd have more leeway to sort out other aspects of their lives, and some of them would eventually quit the drugs voluntarily.

Problem is, we're more worried about people not becoming addicted in the first place, and everyone seems to think that the best way to do that is to restrict the legal supply. The two pull in opposite directions.

If we can find a better way of fixing the second problem, maybe we can fix the first one too, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meanwhile, governments will insist on grasping at straws in order to deal with the unintended consequences they themselves have created, and some of the straws they clutch at are going to be downright evil, like this one.