about a year ago, the ontario government shut down the supervised injection sites. i didn't even know that they did that. i did know that the premier's brother and former mayor of toronto was a notorious drug addict, and doug ford is, unusually for a modern post-thatcher conservative, bent on saving the souls of the lost drug addicts.....and getting them jobs. it's not clear how much of this is rhetoric.

the truth is that the government probably foolishly thought it could save money by shutting the supervised injection sites down.

now, a year later, it's dealing with public drug use in libraries, on subways, in parks and other places where the drug addicts are causing a nuisance. well, they shut the sites down.

contrary to ignorant conservative argumentation, the reason these sites were set up was to offset the web of social costs created by drug addiction, from higher policing to higher health costs.

predictably, ontario is now exacerbating a paramedic shortage, due to having to send ambulances out all over the place for overdoses and is considering setting up an expensive special police force with unique powers to act without a warrant that threatens everybody's civil liberties.

drug addicts are not worth the costs. they aren't worth the financial costs and they aren't worth the social costs. we can't be squandering such a high number of resources on drug addicts if we want functional health care, housing and policing resources.

it's not worth it.

if there's an aversion to putting these sites in specific areas, find more acceptable sites, perhaps out of urban cores. 

the alternative is skyrocketing costs, attacks on civil liberties and, eventually, putting them in jail, instead.