Regardless, I don’t think coerced treatment is the right move. Rather we should be evaluating why people don’t want to seek it out. My guess would be that they find current treatment options to be ineffective
Yeah, most of the people I associate with on the street here in BC (myself included) are faced with two obstacles that often seem insurmountable for going to treatment, which are:
a) the prohibitive cost of a quality treatment center (hard to define exactly what 'quality' means, but in my area the "good" treatment center is highly patient-oriented, doesn't mandate 12-steps, has highly qualified personnel who have mostly overcome their own addictions, offers holistic techniques for rebuilding y our social skills and life.) The cost for a two-month treatment here is just under $30,000
b) the shit quality of government-funded programs. Getting on welfare gets you a free pass into a government funded rehab program where relapse rates can be as high as 80%.
I try to encourage people to discuss and think about why they're using when I'm on the block. There's a lot more self-awareness on the street than one might imagine. Btut theer's an equal number of glossy-eyed blank stares that one receives in response to any questions about motives or intent.
I find myself questioning the importance and validity of safe injection sites a lot of the time. They've certainly helped me connect with doctors to get onto opioid maintenance therapy. But I think my interest in doing this legitimate is the exception rather than the rule. Most people just flip their pills. In fact I flipped about half of mine (because they didn't do anything with a fent tolerance) but the doctors are a saving grace for helping someone get their foot in the door with non-judgmental maintenance therapy to at least straighten their life out.
I'm currently trying to transition onto Suboxoe but I feel the induction rate was too fast (bumping up by 0.5-1mg daily until at12mg) so I took it a bit slower only to find out today that to refill my script I need to take a witness dose of 12mg when I've only been at about 5mg a day and still using a bit of fent. So I had to decide between going into precip. or risk running out of subs before I can get back to the doc...