Global Politics Forced rehab in Alberta

[tryptakid]

The threshold for legal incompetence is pretty high in Canada. The judge will tend to side with the rights of the individual unless there are at least two medical testimonies that have strong evidence, one of which must be psychiatric. My fear in Canada is that it's not hard to line up certain professionals to rubber stamp orders as a way to make things look legit. Canada is a very "order and governance" type country where the power gets what it wants, if it really wants it, especially through the courts.

But then... I saw a homeless guy chase some dude down the street the recently with a hatchet, shouting things that didn't make sense. He was mentally ill + high, like most of them are. The police tackled him and took him away. (Plain clothed police btw, it was shocking to see some dude in jogging pants pull a full shotgun out of them.) And then? Said homeless guy was back on the street this week, out on bail I guess.

Honestly I don't know what the solution is anymore. Nothing seems adequate.

Yeah... It's a really bleak dichotomy sometimes.

We need mental health and addiction recovery programs that people want to utilize. If we make programs that people actually want to use, and that help them get out of desperate circumstances, they will use them.

If we force people to use services that suck, they will try to avoid them and do drugs and then chase people around with weapons while on said drugs

For all the wealth and pearl clutching we have in our world - maybe the wealthy should invest in helping people. It'll improve everything and it won't cost much. We have the data on what works.. And there are people like me who want to be a part of helping. Seems like a good return on investment. Maybe @Tronica can use bluelight's status as a charity to help advocate for investment into humane recovery programs throughout the world impacted by addiction. Purdue just settled for 7.4 billion in damages for their role in the opioid crisis:
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s...klers-reach-new-7-4-billion-opioid-settlement

 

[tryptakid]

There's so much money out there going to states, cities, and towns that is just languishing in city coffers..

Build programs that help elevate people out of addiction, homelessness, and poverty. Teach job skills, enact cori reform upon completion of treatment, give people cooperative housing arrangements as part of treatment.

The answers are there, we just need advocacy to get it going.