Thread by @kwardvancouver

if you have some time tonight to change how you understandstand the Downtown Eastside, there are some perspectives i'd like to share. for tomorrow
#DTES #vanpoli This is @johannhari101 speaking last fall. via @YouTube

we are still doing #harmReduction but
>>>>>>we must expand our concept of HARM [because clearly we did not]
[because everything became much more harmful very quickly
fatal, in fact

HARM is actually dynamic, a shapeshifter.

this is about inequality of possibility. the distance between us – in for example, the Woodwards building, emblematic of everything ever in this tiny world – on this stolen land on which we have built this city

between the resident of the condo building and us in supportive housing – is a distance that capitalism measures in dollars, and therefore in value. it is an unfathomable distance, a gap that that can only be crossed by a miracle like celebrity, lottery, sports stardom,

or the production and sale of synthetic narcotics.

#fentanyl is only the first

but not everyone is cut out to be a pharmacist, and the slightest error or lack of care results in death.

this is how profitable it is. to the best of your knowledge, this is the only means of generating wealth known to you — because criminalization and poverty and all the stigma have shut many doors. this is Hugh Lampkin from @VANDUpeople explaining the economics of fentanyl to you

people have been so poor for so long

people get desperate. plus they see this unreasonable wealth all around, and no other ways to live! they would never raise welfare. things will never change

and so hundreds are dead here.

this is the world that we all have created. All of Us.

it's not about blame! but it is not a moral response to shut the cage and say "i'm sure you all know best."
straight.com/news/841036/ho…

FIVE years - TWO years, at this point this is all we know, endless crisis

so thanks everyone for stopping bothering to ask when will we find a bit of time to relax, and sort out our lives. We Need Some Damn Help. NOW because there's no time left. We have to make a decision, you too, that we have to End this Emergency.

i mean, of course we want to live. ffs, that we have to say so, after everyone's friends are dead.

https://twitter.com/AngelBigsexy/status/1075437157957885953

it's like "being in a war that no one else sees," let's listen to this speech @CitizenYan

and they DON'T GIVE A SHIT .

what's happened is a moral outrage, let's not let it continue. because in the future (SHOULD SUCH a THING OCCUR)

they will wonder how all this could have happened in such a beautiful, rich, decent place #Vancouver #Canada

i see you all trying to make this about "those" people who "aren't from Here" but come on, i can see the fear in your nonsense:

these are your children, and this is You, and ffs! this is your money! i thought you cared about that!

as Harm changes, we have to change how we respond. HARM isn't a monument frozen in time since 2003! yes, @InsiteOfficial is Very Important. and that Right Turn back around the turn of the millennium was rather Harmful as well. in this place in particular. it was a long fight

and we won, and that matters. but afterwards it's as if it was frozen in time: like a Museum of Acceptable Practices on the 100-block. nothing changed inside, as if there was an MOU signed with the external world that everything out there would stay the same too

there was no MOU. @donaldmacmac would say that the Iron Law of Prohibition holds: that prohibited substances become increasingly potent and dangerous over time, because of prohibition.

because of poverty > and the role of the #DTES in cda, >>> the Harm changed dramatically, and user sounded the alarm, and were ignored.

this whole misery-management industry is costing everyone a lot and also, it's appallingly corrupt and just disgusting. and we're trapped in it. like RATS in a Cage, not a Park. 20 years ago, they wanted to build Rat Park

but this - these conditions - has become a terrible cage. it is not my perception:

https://twitter.com/AngelBigsexy/status/1075437157957885953

really?

we ARE trying.

this is the fentanyl of place,
we are trying to use capital to relieve pain

it's not going to work. well, it will, for a while. but it'll f@ck you up

with #SafeSupply we can remove the profit motive from the drug market....if we can do it there - we can do it anywhere-- no bunk
free-futures-society.org/2018/10/05/bun…

we can do this on the 100-block

@threadreaderapp unroll pls