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espressocycle t1_j72a1tm wrote

So basically that thing the city does every so often. One time they called it Operation Sunshine or something. Here's the thing. Dealers are not the problem. They are supply responding to demand and there will always be someone willing to do that. You need to address demand. The users are the problem. Massively expand access to medication-assisted recovery and homeless shelters. Start enforcing laws around possession, vagrancy, panhandling etc and divert them to secure rehab facilities.

We won't do it though because you'll have the civil liberties people insisting people have a right to shoot up in the streets and shit on the sidewalks and people on the right saying junkies don't deserve housing.

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Bunnymomofmany t1_j72mbua wrote

Kensington has been Kensington as long back as I can remember in Philly, when I moved there in the 80s. Yes it’s gotten horrifically worse. But It was awful as long ago as say 2000. And you hit the nail on the head, neither side is willing to concede to do what must be done, and therefore never will be done.

That and it will take an army deployment to clean this up now, and noooooobldy wants to go There.

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jersey_girl660 t1_j789hkg wrote

An army deployment won’t work. Those of us who work with the community or have been a part of the community know what works (evidence based treatment) but nobody wants to actually do that because of stigma. Easier to just pretend the police and courts can make this right when we don’t even have enough treatment beds for those who want treatment.

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espressocycle t1_j7vwgfk wrote

Operation Sunshine et al helped though. They improved the situation but they were unsustainable long term.

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jersey_girl660 t1_j789a3o wrote

There’s not enough treatment facilities to do this. Not to mention the horrendous state of addiction treatment in the us.

I can’t find the article right now. But there’s a woman who lives in fairhill who volunteered for over a decade with the homeless there. They got a very high number of people to agree to treatment. However because of 1 lack of beds 2 the way the system is completely fucked up it didn’t work out the way it intended to

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espressocycle t1_j7vv6vk wrote

No but there could be if we funded it. And if treatment centers weren't run by crooks and adherents to scientifically invalid 12-step dogma that would help too.

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