Biometric opioid vending machine unveiled in Vancouver

[Ruin]

This is the most Borderlands/Futurama thing I've seen in real life.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

This is the most Borderlands/Futurama thing I've seen in real life.

Vancouver is the most depressing, dystopian place I've ever seen.

 

[MrJokerRager]

Hmm, maybe Duterte and Muslim nations have the right idea, the death penalty for drug users. Anyways how is Duterte doing, media dont talk about him anymore and his war on drugs.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

"Harm reduction" is Orwell-speak for ENABLING.

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

Can we get a count going until one addict start cutting off hands to scan into the machines?

Yeah we should keep an eye on that...I initially thought: Does the hand have to be alive?

Also this is a really bad idea. What happens when the junkie can't get anymore from the machine? Right back to the smack.

 

[sasazuka]

Biometric dilala today, biometric supermarket tomorrow?

Wait, was this filmed in Japan? I think I see a Honda Acty kei truck in the background and those houses and telephone poles look very Japanese to me.

 

[Mediocre]

"Local drug addict had been sighted and an arrest warrant was issued on charges of theft of a digger and theft of a new opiod vending machine, the addict was later found dead from a overdose and none of the drugs inside the machine were recovered"

 

[keyboredsm4shthe2nd]

Because trusting them to do this is so much better than rehab

 

[HollaGemini]

This is fantastic.
“So far it has been great for them and it is really helping them stabilize and not hustle for drugs like they were a month ago. We wanted to demonstrate the technology works, and it is,” he said."
LOL
"Its a miracle! We're giving them drugs and theyre not hustling for more, ITS WORKING!!!"
In other news, a homeless man given a free meal wasnt hungry afterwards!

 

[Catman from cat town]

How is having hydromorphine gonna help someone who is having withdraws from something like heroin or fentanyl? That sounds like only giving one can of beer, once a day, to an alcoholic whose been drinking a fifth of vodka everyday for 20 years and thinking its harm reduction therapy.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Oh Canada you!

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

>He said hydromorphone is typically crushed and injected
Even in their ideal enabling scenario, the "safe" medication is already being misused from the very start.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

>He said hydromorphone is typically crushed and injected
Even in their ideal enabling scenario, the "safe" medication is already being misused from the very start.

They should just have the machine dispense loaded needles.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

What happened to just beating the addiction out of people?
Nothing works quite as well as a little negative reinforcement.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Should have put it in rural Ohio or West Virginia. That'll really test how effective it is.

 

[Botchy Galoop]

I have absolutely no problem with opium vending machines for addicts.
This appears to go against the opinion of most posting to this thread, but I have what I consider valid reasons.

The "junkies" who are dying are generally doing so because the very cheap, illegal Chinese fentanyl is being pressed into pharmaceutical pill clones; look alike pills for Oxys, Hydro's, Morphine and even Xanax are actually unreliable doses of street fentanyl. Also, the statistics for overdose by opioid do not take into account poly-pharmacy use. That is to say; that if an autopsy shows that the deceased had 6 different drugs in their system, one of them being an opiate, it will be counted as an opioid OD. This obviously skews the "death by opium" statistics.
The price on the street for actual pharmaceutical pills is higher than street heroin, so there is a huge profit motive to press fentanyl into look a likes. The people who end up buying these fakes are dying because they think they are just taking a couple of hydros and are not aware that they are actually taking a drug that is 100s x stronger.
There are cases of OD's from heroin being cut with fentanyl, but it is much less common than the OD's that are caused by someone taking what they think is a real pharmaceutical, only to wake up dead.

Regardless of who is ODing, the people who are currently being punished for all this dying hat is going on, are my former clients; Hospice patients, chronic pain patients, even post-surgical patients. There is no "Opioid Crisis" in North America. There is an illegal Chinese fentanyl crisis.

The number of fatal OD's from the Chinese fentanyl that is smuggled into North America has been the impetus for the absolute draconian rules and laws that have now interfered with people who need actual pain management. The DEA, the CDC, the FDA are all making it nearly impossible for Drs to treat pain without fear of losing their licences. Grandma is not going to become an addict by having Hydro's for a month after she breaks her hip, as long as she follows correct dosages and titrates her dose when stopping taking the pills. Many post surgery patients now are rarely sent home with anything stronger than an Advil. That is unacceptable. Patients dying of stage 4 cancer are having to fight tooth and nail for pain meds. They are sent to "pain management clinics" where they are treated like addicts; they must submit to pill counts, urine tests, etc. In my state, if a pain patient shows any cannabis in their urine, they are immediately cut off from pain pills.

All this to say...If addiction is treated like a public health issue and not a criminal issue, then I say let registered and regulated addicts have their daily dose at low cost, while also making available treatment for the addiction if they so desire. Let them take the safer pharmaceuticals rather than letting the criminal enterprise profit. (Of course the Hell's Angels in BC would actually hate this idea.) Actual pharmaceutical grade drugs instead of street drugs means fewer deaths. Lower cost drugs mean less crime committed to fund the addiction. While I have some sympathy for addicts, I can't say I care if they end up killing themselves through their drug use. It is their choice.

Who I do care about are the people who are being treated like addicts and having their valid need for opiates denied and criminalized. A very small percentage of patients prescribed pain meds become addicted. Most studies that I have seen indicate that less than 5 percent of people prescribed pain meds for any duration actually become addicted. So stop interfering with the Doctor/Patient relationship and allow people to live with some kind of relief and dignity.

So, yeah, put a pill vending machine on every corner. I can only see an upside. What is currently being done hasn't been working. So outside of glassing China, I think it's a grand idea.

 

[murgatroid]

 

[Opiophile]

I love how the article calls hydromorphone a "medicinal alternative to heroin." Talk about a crock of shit. Any prescription opioid could be called that, but hydromorphone is a semi-synthetic opioid that is quite potent. Not anywhere near Fentanyl territory, but still powerful. It blows my mind they are going to be dispensing this shit on the street for addicts. You'd think they would dispense Buprenorphine or Methadone if they were intent on having some big gay machine give a bunch of hopeless people free drugs, End autistic drug rant.

 

[The Real SVP]

Wait, was this filmed in Japan?

It was, by Christian missionaries.

 

[Kamov Ka-52]

The technology is neat and it could be useful, but Jesus Christ, who thought putting scheduled narcotics (opioids at that), in a vending machine was a good idea?