 What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And I wanted to discuss a brand new video that Vice uploaded over to their channel. And it's about the heroin epidemic in Denmark and in Sweden. All right, so we're going to be discussing that in this video, because there's some topics that also pertain to not only the United States, but other countries throughout the world, because a lot of people are looking to places that are implementing what's called safe injection size, which I'll explain pretty soon here. But a lot of people are wondering if they should do it, because they're a little bit controversial. All right, those of you who don't know me, one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this subject is because I am a recovering opioid addict. I haven't picked up a drink or a drug in seven and a half years, which is pretty crazy, because I live in Las Vegas, where drugs are a plenty. All right, but I have worked in treatment, and I try to keep up to date with all this and try to see what other places in the world are doing to curb this current epidemic. All right, so I'm going to be talking about this Vice video, I'm not going to be using any clips, because Vice will hit me with a copyright strike with the quickness, but I might be throwing up some screenshots here or there. So a few things that we're going to be talking about, one thing we're going to be kind of summarizing what was going on in that Vice documentary. All right, we're going to be talking about the pros and cons of safe injection sites. But then I also want to ask some questions that I had after watching this Vice video, right? Like how many addicts are in total in both these countries? What's a process for getting treatment like in these countries? And how many people actually get treated? All right, so anyways, the Vice video kind of goes like this. A lot of people from Sweden who are addicted to heroin are actually going to Denmark, right? So Denmark is getting this influx in heroin addicts coming over there. And the reason for this being is Sweden isn't as lenient with the decriminalization of drugs, like they lock a lot of people up for drug use. So Denmark, they're taking the harm reduction route. That's why so many addicts are going there. So they have set up safe injection sites. So around these safe injection sites, it's kind of like a free zone. So you can't get busted around there if you have heroin on you. Okay, so a safe injection site. These are places where you can bring your heroin in and you go in there and you can inject safely. And they also give you needles. Okay, so one of the one of the things about these injection sites is currently there have been no overdose deaths. Absolutely no overdose deaths in these safe injection sites. All right, one of the reason being is you have a staff there and there's a life saving drug called naloxone sometimes referred to as Narcan, which reverses overdoses. So if people are shooting up in a safe place, there's a pretty much no chance they're gonna die unless they did like a massive dose. Like I have known people who have overdosed and they've been hit like three, four, five times with Narcan and they still ended up passing away. All right, so these safe injection sites, obviously they don't have them in Sweden, but what about the rest of the world? Canada actually has safe injection sites, all right? And I was just doing some research right before this video and they saw a slight decrease in the amount of overdose deaths. They had on average about 4,100 per year and now it's dropped to about 3,800 but a decrease in overdose deaths is pretty good. Okay, now something you should know is this has been a topic of debate in the United States for a while because of our heroin epidemic. So although safe injection sites are not legal in the United States as of yet, there are many cities that have applied to have safe injection sites. Some of them include San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and New York City, all right? So which one is the best option? Who's doing it right? Sweden or Denmark? Safe injection sites. So let's talk about the pros and cons and these are from my point of view. I would love to know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below. All right, so the benefits, the pros, okay? One of them is, again, nobody's ever died in one. That's a pretty good thing. Second one is it's better for the community at large because since these places are distributing clean needles, there's not really as much of a risk for spreading infectious diseases like AIDS or hepatitis, all right? So that was one of the reasons that they decided to open up these safe injection sites is because there was this massive spread of infectious diseases. So it's better for the community in that aspect, all right? Next one is less of a stigma, okay? This is something that I talk about a lot, like the war on drugs in the United States, it hasn't worked pretty much since it got implemented. My personal belief is that we need to provide treatment rather than locking people up. Locking people up often just gets them back into the cycle of using because they have it on their record. It's hard for them to get their job, they get depressed, they turn back to using, okay? The next benefit is less overdoses overall, okay? So Denmark compared to Sweden has seen a drop in their overdose rates. So now let's talk about the cons, okay? These are reasons people don't like these safe injection sites. Some of these are my opinions as well. So one of the things that we have to think about is they're not helping people get clean, okay? So I believe in Canada, there are some safe injection sites where people who come in there, like they really try to get people clean, right? Like when they come in there, they're given like resources to go to treatment and all these other things, like they're trying to get people to only come in there and be safe, but they know that treatment is an option. But from what it looks like with Denmark is that they're not really offering people or trying to push people towards treatment, okay? The next con on the list is it's not really helping the community when these people aren't getting clean. So one of the stories that they showed in there, and I think both the guys they interviewed, but these guys are homeless, right? And they talk about how, yeah, there's homeless shelters, you can get food, you get a place to sleep, but obviously they're not giving you heroin. So this dude is sitting here talking about how he still commits crimes in order to get his drugs, right? So in the United States, even though we don't have safe injection sites, we do have methadone clinics. And one of the reasons people want methadone clinics is because there are decreases in crimes. People are getting methadone for free. So they don't have to worry about, you know, people getting robbed to fuel that addiction. Now, one of the reasons that I personally don't agree with because there's no data to really back it up is people don't want safe injection sites or even methadone clinics in their area because they feel it will bring crime to their area because of that stigma of addicts. But research shows that areas that have methadone clinics actually have less crime because again, the drug addicts aren't going out there robbing people, all right? So those are some of the pros and cons. But like I said, I wanted to ask some questions because after I watched that Vice video, there were a lot of questions that weren't really answered, all right? From the dialogue and kind of the way the video was, it seemed like Vice was trying to be like, yo, Denmark is the way to go. The interviewer, like the journalists in there, he actually interviews a dude from Sweden, like one of the people in the government who makes laws and stuff like that. Like he interviewed him and he was kind of like given the dude a hard time. So I had some questions because I want a more balanced view on this. So again, the three questions we're going to be asking are how many addicts are there in total? What's the process like to get treatment in Denmark and Sweden? And how many people actually get treatment? Okay? So I was able to find some of these answers at the website for the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Addiction. All right? So the first question, how many addicts total? All right? So I had this question because even though Denmark has less overdoses, do they have less addicts? Right? Because when you're providing a safe injection site without really offering treatment, what's that doing to the community as a whole of people who are actually struggling with addiction? Are they getting clean? Now, unfortunately, which is really weird, looking at this website who has a ton of statistics, but the only drugs that they track for how many people are using are weed, cocaine, MDMA, and amphetamines. All right? So the next best thing that I was able to find was how many people go to treatment. But we got to realize that this isn't covering the full scope because a lot of people who are struggling with addiction don't go to treatment. All right? The disease of addiction is very powerful and it makes us have any excuse we can to not get clean. All right? So here on the left, you're looking at Sweden. On the right, you're looking at Denmark. All right? So in Sweden, 24% of all people who go to treatment are going there for opioids. In Denmark, only 5% of people are going to treatment for heroin. Now, real quick, something that we need to realize too, Sweden's statistics covers opioids in general. Denmark's statistics only says heroin. So it's not taking into account prescription opioids. Like that was my drug of choice. So I'd be curious what that's all about. Now, real quick, real quick, looking at these numbers, like Denmark has 63% of all drug treatment admissions for marijuana, for cannabis. Like, I don't know. Now I want to research that and see what the heck is going on over there. All right? But getting back to the heroin topic, vice didn't cover this. But we can safely assume that in Sweden, even though they are criminalizing heroin more strictly, even though they don't have safe injection sites, more people in Sweden are actually getting help to get clean. So the next question is, how accessible is treatment? And I think there's a very important topic because we have this as a topic of debate. Like, if you've been watching the debates, people have been talking all the time for these 2020 elections, like, should we have a single payer healthcare system, like they do in places like Sweden and like Denmark, you know what I mean? So when you hear people talking about Medicare for all, that's what they're talking about. So those who argue against Medicare for all, right? And when they talk about these other countries that have it, their primary argument is the long wait time. And personally, I think that's a pretty bogus reason not to implement that. So let's look at the treatment process for Denmark first. Access to drug treatment within 14 days of the first contact or request is guaranteed for drug users over the age of 18, and in some cases for users who are under 18. People who are entitled to treatment may choose between public and private treatment programs within the framework of a prescribed treatment plan, which is free of charge to the client. Drug treatment includes medical and social interventions and is delivered with close cooperation between the health and social sectors. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out, time out. So in Denmark, they're guaranteed treatment within 14 days, but people in the United States arguing against Medicare for all are saying long wait times. Let me make this very clear to you as somebody who's been working in the addiction field for a long time. Currently, if you don't have insurance and you're going to a government-funded facility, those wait lists can take months. I have known people who went on wait lists just for detox that was a month, two months out. That is insane. So clearly they're doing something right if they can guarantee you treatment within 14 days. All right, so let's look at what the admission process is like for Sweden. The treatment related objectives of the comprehensive strategy for alcohol, narcotics, doping, and tobacco, 2016 to 20, place an emphasis on enhancing the access and quality of care based on a client-centered approach. In Sweden, drug treatment is organized by social services in local communities, specialized outpatient clinics, hospitals providing detoxification and residential treatment facilities, compulsory treatment for up to a maximum of six months is possible in Sweden, which is provided by the National Board of Institutional Care. So again, time out six months. It's free and six months. I always want to know when I'm watching the people debate against Medicare for all when they're like, some people like their private insurance. I'm like, who likes their private insurance? Because I'll tell you this, working in drug treatment, you are lucky. You are very lucky if your private insurance that people love so much covers you for 30 to 45 days. But in Sweden, you can get six months of inpatient treatment for no cost. Think about that for a second. Lastly, how many people are getting treatment in Sweden versus Denmark? All right. Now keep in mind, keep in mind Sweden has a little over 10 million people living there. Denmark has about 5.6 million. Okay, so keep that in mind as we look at these numbers. All right. So what is this telling us about safe injection sites? Less people are trying to get clean. And like we talked about earlier, with no incentive to really get clean, people are still committing crimes to get heroin. And to kind of wrap this video up, speaking as a recovering drug addict myself, like I understand that safe injection sites save lives. And that is awesome. You know what I mean? But here's a thing. Like for me, living in my active addiction was no life. It was no life worth living. Every single day, the only thing on my mind was how do I get more and how do I use more? All right. I was a slave to these drugs. So although I do think safe injection sites are a good thing, I think methadone clinics are a good thing. I think all of these programs need to really push people towards getting help. Okay. That's just my opinion. All right. That's just me. All right. But now with all the information, let me know what your thoughts are down in the comments below. If you're from Denmark or Sweden, let me know your thoughts about what's going on in your country. Let me know down in the comments below. I want to kind of like talk about more places. I was looking into Canada. I couldn't find much information. So if you or someone you know works in the Canadian like healthcare realm, hit me up. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at the rewired soul. All right. But anyways, but anyways, if you stuck around this long, I appreciate you. 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