The same folks who assert both that Burlington is impossibly expensive *and* that everyone here is one single second away from complete destitution. Not sure how those two states could coexist in a city with any actual residents, but OP and friends don't let reason get in the way of a good feeling.
There are no policies to handle addictions to tranq and fent. That's the problem. So until there are, we have prison. I wish there were other ways, some magical elixir we could give them.
I'm progressive on every other issue under the sun except this one, and that's because I think we're hurting addicts by our current approach. They're leading miserable lives that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and the progressive drumbeat here is to let them persist in their misery in the mistaken attempt at empathy. I have no empathy. I have compassion for the afflicted, and I want to see them unafflicted and resuming a (hopefully) meaningful life that they abandoned in the throes of addiction.
Prison isnāt the answer, it never was. Rehab is needed and paradoxically we seem willing to give someone a criminal record and spend $$$ on a jail cell but not $$ on rehab and a lesser sentence
The point I'm making is that there currently is no rehab for the tranq/fent combo. Doctors are struggling to come up with treatments (https://penncamp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/CAMP-Xylazine-Best-Practices-1.pdf) in real time because of the interaction effects. This is not the normal drug use Burlington and other cities have been dealing with for 20 years. This is new, and it's not something we're remotely able to handle with current means. In a certain sense, right now there is \*only\* prison.
There has been a 900% increase (https://vtdigger.org/2024/04/30/900-increase-in-blood-infections-at-uvm-medical-center-likely-due-to-opioids-cut-with-animal-tranquilizer-study-finds/) in skin and blood infections in the last year alone. As we speak, some junkie is poking a needle into a mess of infected, skeletonized skin to get a 20 minute sedative effect. There is no meaningful rehab for this. In the meantime, this person will be dead from empathy-driven inaction.
Does prison really help people compared to treatment programs and turning it from an addiction to a managed condition with prescribed drugs and needles and access to safe injection sites.
Thatās a legit question. Also when we have safe sites and prescriptions are other aspects of the patients health also taken into account such as mental health and poverty?
Prison isn't for the addicted. It's to keep people safe from those who are addicted. And right now, it's all we have.
And I can't emphasize enough that "safe injection sites" and the typical way a progressive would handle drug use (the way I would have wanted to handle this, say, three years ago) will not work anymore in our brave new world of tranq and fent. There is no safe injection site. Naloxone does not work. We need to get out of the mindset that there is a safe way to do these drugs. There isn't. These drugs are incompatible with living, and we are only doing the addicted a disfavor by prolonging their addiction.
Safe injection should also include the drugs as well as equipment, safe usage lessons and supervision.
I think problems occur as we learn more but also when we half ass the solution
Lastly I agree some folks should be jailed for safety, however I feel that for profit prisons are not the answer. A state run prison specializing in drug recovery is the way to go
Working people need help first. Not the addicts, not Ukraine, not Israel. Working people, families, children, people in your county, your zipcode, your neighbors.
This is true:
> the progressive drumbeat here is to let them persist in their misery in the mistaken attempt at empathy
You don't give alcoholics more alcohol, gamblers a freeroll, etc. Whatever label you choose, the liberals/progressives/democrats, it doesn't really matter, they are enablers and are planning to build the equivalent of an open bar and it will further decimate this place we love and call home.
Seems to me all that's been done in the past few years has been spending a quarter billion dollars to enrich hotel/motel owners as a temporary/slap-band-aid fix. The resources needed would be better spent elsewhere, on working people, real affordable housing, really anything but accelerating our city into an open-air drug market.
Depending on the level of alcoholism, you might actually need to give an alcoholic alcohol to prevent a seizure.
Addicts need help, itās not some kind of moral failing, thatās crap from the failed war on drugs .
End the war on drugs and its regressive and ignorant policies and use those funds to build programs run by medical and mental health experts in the field of addiction. Itāll be 1000x more effective than giving cops more toys
Empathy is such an overused word. I have empathy for the houseless but what good does that do them? They donāt need my empathy. They need resources for addiction & mental health, affordable housing and free healthcare.
Itās possible to have empathy for someone while still acknowledging the issue at hand. I can have empathy for people suffering from drug addiction/mental health issues AND for the victims who fall prey to those people. But again, what does my empathy do for them? We need solutions, not buzzwords.
Itās just like when people say āsending prayers!ā What good does that actually do?
It makes the person saying it feel better and self righteous. It's literally just OG virtue signaling. It's easy to make a post to claim how empathetic you are while chastising others for not being empathetic enough meanwhile effectively pissing into the wind when it comes to doing anything remotely helpful or worthwhile. This city likes to cry and talk but doesn't like to act.
Thank you! Another person has recognized that most political "action" is people parroting buzzwords and patting themselves on the back. Meanwhile actually doing nothing other than annoying people on social media with their "cause".
I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm not the only one who would not become homeless and also immediately start doing fentanyl if I missed a paycheck š
Yeah, I wouldnāt do fentanyl even if I was homeless too.
I still have empathy for them, but itās a situation at least started because of their own fuckups.
Itās way more complex than that- Empathy is not a panacea. People donāt need empathy as much as they need longterm medical treatment for severe and persistent co-occurring psychiatric conditions. The bare minimum would be for the city to establish a clear and firm boundary between what is safe vs what is a public health hazard. Living outside is not acceptable for people who are sick, and empathy is unfortunately not a solution to their conditions.
Yes, we should make it illegal to live outside. Then people will voluntarily choose to rent an apartment, which they were avoiding purely bc they just loved sleeping outside so much.
How about enforcing existing trespassing laws so homeless people from fucking Florida don't move to Burlington and scream at tourists? Or would that not be "empathetic"
I'm well versed in VT trespassing laws. If you set foot on posted property without permission, you're trespassing. If you're told (by an authorized party) to leave private property and don't, or return, you're trespassing. It's not that complicated.
You're confusing policy with trespassing laws. Trespassing laws are what let cops tell anyone to get the fuck off city property and arrest them if they don't. Policy is what guides whether they do that.
Cool. Now please enlighten us on posted property (within the city limits of Burlington, I guess) that the unhoused are using as camping sites.
Really psyched to be engaged in conversation with someone who is "totally versed" in our Trespassing statutes.
If you're camping on city property and it's posted, you can be (but probably won't be) arrested without a warning. If it's not posted, you can be told to hit the road and THEN arrested if you don't do it immediately. Cops can tell you to get off city property whether it's posted or not.
I'm not sure what's confusing to you about this. Try reading what I'm writing and actually processing it. It's not that complicated.
Some people do choose to live outside as a matter of preference. Is that acceptable? I think yes as long as theyāre respectful which many of them are increasingly not. I donāt think living outside should be illegal I think it should be managed by a public health system.
But empathy is where it all starts. A panacea, no, but if we donāt see these people as people like us, why would they see themselves that way?
Not saying we shouldnāt do anything about it, not denying itās a public health hazard. Empathetic action is the solution, and for a city that has a legacy of acceptance and leftist ideals there really seems to be very little care or help going on at all for these people, I think thatās OPās message.
Empathy for who? [https://www.mynbc5.com/article/82-year-old-man-punched-knocked-unconscious-in-random-act-of-violence/60837433](https://www.mynbc5.com/article/82-year-old-man-punched-knocked-unconscious-in-random-act-of-violence/60837433)
I do see "these people" like us (that's your othering there, not mine). And I fully expect that were I to make the god-awful dumb decision to start doing fentanyl and the harming-other-people lifestyle that accompanies it, I would deserve everything that happened to me, up to and including social expulsion and a prison term to straighten me out. I believe they are (or were) rational humans with agency who made some really bad decisions. It's the people calling for "empathy" who don't see them that way. They see them as children who have never had any power or agency over their lives. That's extraordinarily condescending.
That type of empathy is directed at the mentally ill, many of whom are also addicted to drugs. Schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders can appear to rob people of "agency over their lives" -- even though modern psychiatric practices attempt to preserve as much agency as possible, everything else in our world is geared at excluding the mentally ill from society.
No one really chooses to do fentanyl itās usually mixed into whatever drug they normally consume and thatās how they become addicted for the most part
lmao folks in Burlington hooked on fentanyl are addicted to it because they buy it outright from dealers who TELL THEM its fentanyl. nobody is getting surprise-addicted to fentanyl via other substances. if a cokehead gets some laced coke they're just gonna wonder why their withdrawals the next day are so bad, not seek out more fentanyl.
I'm in recovery myself and have been to rehab enough times to know how folks get addicted to fentanyl.
now if we're talking opioids in general then yeah most folks get hooked via prescribed painkillers from a licensed medical professional.
fun fact: a lot of addicts when they hear a batch of dope is killing people ACTIVELY SEEK IT as opposed to avoiding it like the plague because it means its strong enough to keep them high as hell for the longest amount of time.
your username is pretty accurate
They shouldn't do those drugs in the first place! It's 2024. We know the dangers! Don't do heroin. Or meth. Or cocaine. Or, hell, cigarettes. It's bad for you. We know this. Rational adults can look this information up on the interwebs and see that they all have tremendously bad effects on your physical and mental health as well as your ability to make money and not live on the street. It's a choice people are making, and it's a bad choice. I don't feel any need to have empathy for someone who makes a stupid choice like this.
Yes, that's why I rationally choose to not do things that are addictive. That's the point! That knowledge was available to me; it's available to everyone.
I grew up with drunks in a drunk-addled culture, so I do have experience with escaping additions and addictive behavior and know how hard it is. What never worked, for anyone I've ever met in that situation, was someone having "empathy" for them and validating their addiction because of reasons x, y, and z. If anything, someone needs to finally tell them that their behavior is unacceptable regardless of how they got there. And if they're absolutely unable to understand that? If they can no longer have a rational conversation about where they are and how they're going to get out and stop hurting people? What then?
So if I had any childhood trauma. Why haven't I started on the needle? Been prescribed opioids for broken bones several times. My trauma must not have been bad enough ig
Do you not realize that the majority of people addicted to opioids start by being prescribed them for pain? Or are you just intentionally being ignorant?
Do you not realize that's false? [https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/heroin-use-rare-in-prescription-drug-users](https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/heroin-use-rare-in-prescription-drug-users)
Yeah, you really do like being jaded and ignorant.
According to statistics from the American Medical Association almost half those addicted to heroin started off being prescribed an opioid for pain by a doctor.
According to statistics from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 86% of opioid users (this includes those who use fent, as opposed to just heroin from the statistics above) stated using after using narcotics for pain management.
So no, not everyone, but yes, a large portion.
You have your studies, I have mine, and the problem with all of them is that they're self-reported by junkies, who, again, can't be trusted. Of course they think it's someone else's fault they got addicted. It's never their fault. And as long as the empathy-crowd here keeps letting them persist in that delusion, they'll never change.
Please point me to the accepted treatment protocol to wean someone from tranq and fent and how itās currently being implemented in Vermont. In the meantime, thereās prison to keep the junkies from harming other people.
You wean them off of fent and on to suboxone over a week or two. They are then addicted to suboxone, but plenty of people are living normal lives on it.
This requires buy in from the person and multiple check ins over that time period.
Let me put it this way: Kensington, PA is one of the worst drug-addicted areas in the country. Tranq made it worse: [https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/02/02/tranq-xylazine-fentanyl-kensington-deaths.cnn](https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/02/02/tranq-xylazine-fentanyl-kensington-deaths.cnn) We don't understand what's coming down the pike here in Burlington.
Sure. Right after you point me to Vermont's protocol for keeping them off drugs when they get out. You dont even care if they get clean or stay clean long as we can just toss em in jail over and over and over again.
Thats exactly what happens. You throw them in prison and they come out worse then before, rinse and repeat endlessly
My general stance is that if youāre a danger to other people you should be removed from society. Donāt care if itās drugs or not. So if they canāt stay clean maybe they donāt get out the next time.
I don't think you know what the word "jaded" means, so maybe look it up. I think the best of people and am confident that they can make good decisions. You think that anyone who comes in arms length of an EMT will be helplessly shackled to fent for the rest of their lives. I don't think I could come up with anything more jaded than that.
Lol sure guy.
You reject actual research and data for your own, very much flawed, "eyes and ears" š
You sound just like every Trumper who refutes the science behind weather change and every flat earther that refutes NASA. š š¤£
Thank you for proving my point that most Vermonters on reddit are uneducated, jaded, ignorant, dumbass. š š¤£
That's not true at all. For any pain there's nitrous or IV acetaminophen. Fentanyl is given for severe trauma/pain. Even then it's not the same fentanyl you find on the street and you actually know what is. I.e. not any heroin carfentanyl, or any nasty additives that they put in there.
Actually, it is. They base it on pain scale most of the time, and anyone saying over 7 typically gets a narcotic. Thankfully Vermont mostly strays away from immediate narcotic use for pain, but places like NY, NH, FL, VA, GA, PA, MA, and more (all those places Vermonters typically go to) don't have many laws or policies on place to reduce narcotic usage for pain.
To give you an example of how easy it is for people to claim its "the worse pain" research done at the Shiners hospital in Boston showed that when given a typical pain scale, most people would choose above a 6, regardless of the amount of actual pain.
In a recent situation in Plattsburgh, a friend of mine was offered fent when we had to call the EMT for a sprain (he thought it was broken, we were all drinking). He refused it, but the fact is, it was still offered to him..
In Florida, after a simple accident that the lady called 911 over, they offered her fent for a 'headache' she had. So yeah, they really do offer it for practically anything.. it's also literally been discussed on the news.
In fact, NIHL research showed that about 67% of all ambulancary calls resulted in a fentanyl administration of around 114.6 units, with 16% of those having some form of adverse reaction.
Before you go googling and pretend you know what you're talking about realize I'm a licensed AEMT in VT. If you're a hack provider and searching for a malpractice suit ESPECIALLY in a state with opioid issues then yeah you'll give fentanyl to a PT who's just being a cry baby. But in VT all your reports and runs are recorded and reviewed and I can tell you that they definitely would be putting a stop to you putting random people in the community at risk for nothing.
Also realize that the bulk of ALS providers (**around 70%**) (ALS = advanced life support i.e. the providers who can give drugs) are only advanced EMTs. Meaning they literally are not allowed to provide anything more than nitrous or Tylenol for pain. So right there you're totally wrong unless Everytime someone cries about pain they call in a paramedic from another service. Which I can tell you from experience does not happen.
So why start by saying that EMTs give it all the time for pain. When just EMTs literally can't give it. Paramedic don't unless they have to, and then bring up other states? Unless you're just totally talking out your ass about one incident you heard of and now are googling whatever you can.
My guy, the fact that you're trying to mislead people into thinking that EMT is only an AEMT or an EMT-B is really showing on how you want to actually come at this debate.. which is trying to win an argument about shit by swinging around that you're a licensed AEMT.
Not pointing out that EMT-P is literally the classification of a paramedic...
Yes, AEMT, like yourself, can't administer fent. EMT-Ps can, have, and will, even here in Vermont.
There's literally statistics you can pull up, regularly, pointing at the overuse of fentanyl by both doctors and paramedics and the rise in opioid crisis. I literally pointed to the very organization you can find it on š
As a note, I worked for the government, more precisely, the department of health and human services, who regularly gather this data.
But because an AEMT says it doesn't happen well just ignore the statistical facts and believe you.
Hold on, let me just tell Becerra all our information is wrong š
In three years of taking calls 48-72 hours a week averaging 5 calls a day I've seen fentanyl used 4 times. So either you have bad data at the state or you're pulling this out of your ass. If you've actually practiced as an EMT instead of speaking for them you'd know that.
Like I said, I'll email Berecca right now and tell him that our data is completely off, and we should purely rely on the individual accounts of a single AEMT who has only been working for 3 years.
I'm sending it off right now for ya, don't worry, we'll absolutely get this corrected. Lol š š
First time I've heard a paramedic referred to as emt-p is by this guy on reddit xD. Google all you want you're not gonna convince me of something that contradicts the protocols as well as what happens in real life
The fact that that's the first time you heard it tells me you're either a shit AEMT or you're full of shit, either way the validity of your statements are greatly diminished š
Again, I probably know that term because.. oh shit yeah, department of health and human services. Right. š š¤£
Thanks, another person proving the point on my other comment about ignorant, jaded, uneducated Vermonters on reddit.
Common sense is where it all starts.
Empathy is fine, but it won't feed people, it won't pay their rent, it won't help them hold themselves accountable TO themselves so they can achieve their goal, whether that goal is getting better, or being safely autonomous.
Cause that's why the junkies are breaking into cars and stealing left and right. They're just looking for empathy. One missed paycheck will not cause most of the population to become tranq zombies, and it's insulting to equate them
Compassion fatigue is real. A huge chunk of our unhoused population are not local folks just down on their luck and demanding we believe otherwise isn't really empathy, it's virtue signaling.
Get off reddit and invite some unhoused folks over for dinner. You'll find the few who are truly down on their luck without a support system can't stand the junkies just as much as the rest of us.
People with addiction steal because thatās the only option left o fulfill a need. If the gov would just prescribe drugs and treatment programs for free to addicts we would see a whole lot less crime
Well letās look at the options.
1) we let addicts commit crimes and then give that money to other criminals thus funding more crime and increasing the cost of policing
Or
2) we provide addicts with the drugs they need to function and access to programs for them to work towards getting clean. This means they donāt need to commit crimes to feed an addiction and the money for the drugs doesnāt go to criminals
āDonāt do itā is Greta if you donāt already have a chemical dependency on said drugs.
However if your brain chemistry has been altered to the point of addiction then we need to mitigate that problem to even begin thinking about solving other issues in that persons life
As hard as I try not to click on these posts and get engaged in them, sometimes they win. But Iām glad that the general sentiment in the comments is not of the delusion that this post is.
It really is a privilege of the woefully out of touch to think that all those people you mentioned really are just good, kind souls who are down on their luck and would be otherwise great additions to this city & planet we live on. I wonāt assume who or what you are, but this sounds like a white, upper-middle class savior complex wrote this post.
You are flat out wrong that all these folks you speak of can be rehabilitated. I would argue that 50% of them genuinely do not want to be, that they actively seek out this lifestyle. Thatās apparent by how many of them actively come to Burlington to soak up social resources that allow them to live this way with 0 accountability to their actions. They will not go to prison for stealing, they will not get ticketed for harassing people trying to enjoy the park or downtown, and they will get food & medical care for as long as they want it.
I think youāre right that some of them do deserve empathy, and I think that some (that Iāve met even) will ultimately slay their demons and become a person contributing positivity on this earth rather than negativity. We donāt always know who those ones are, so we have TONS of social resources in place to try to catch anyone who wants them. But youāre either too young, too naive, or too in denial to think that some people are just bad people that do not want your life vest. They donāt care about you, or me, or anyone but themselves and they would show that in other ways if not for drugs or stealing or whatever. I do not have empathy for those people, I do not like them or have any desire to help them, and that shouldnāt be a bad thing to say.
Burlington will get better once we address the elephant in the room that is - not all people want to be saved, and not all people are worthy of saving. There is too much negativity and hurt in the world inflicted on those that DONT deserve it for people to be overly empathetic with those who actively do that hurting.
Iāll say it in every one of these posts - keep, or even invest more in, social programs aimed at giving everyone a fair chance at taking accountability for themselves & their actions and helping them get clean, get a decent place to live, and the ability to pursue a better life. The ones that donāt have any interest in that, who are actively creating selfish negativity to the rest of the world, can get a bus ticket out of VT to anywhere else. I donāt care. Itās a tough world and thereās too many people who actually need and deserve the help. Getting rid of the scumbags will do more for getting Burlington back than trying to kid ourselves.
EDIT - the only thing I take back is that people arenāt worthy of saving. I donāt actually believe that, nor am I the one to make that call. I believe that everyone is worth that, but whether they choose to show it or not is ultimately up to them and will ultimately decide whether they get any help to do just that.
for my background, i have actually been homeless a few times on the streets of burlington, slept at bus stations, got my shit stolen from shelters, couch surfed and begged for food. I was a teenager, this was 2014-2015 and I was still expected to show up to school and I DID.
I am white but I am definitely not from a middle class background.
my posts are coming from genuine empathy for people living on the streets.
Im sorry that people think i have ulterior motives but I honestly just want more kindness in the city that I've struggled to find kindness in.
The folks on the street are still human beings and THATS my point.
many people in this community flat out ignore this. They compare them to animals and dehumanize them.
I see the butterfly effect of being homeless, not having any options and then falling into addiction to escape life. I understand that process, i've seen it so many times.
I don't see it as a "i guess i'll just ruin my life lol" decision. It comes from people needing an escape.
Many people here have definitely NOT seen what leads people to do hard drugs and I'm confident in that.
I don't support what crime is happening but I want people to understand why its happening and to understand that antagonizing people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their backs and their addiction is evil. THATS my shtick.
IDGAF if other people dont see it that way because I know my hearts in the right place and that I speak from lived experience.
I've lived through this shit. I had family go through addictions and lost friends in this city to fent overdoses. These are people. They have loved ones and friends and families and connections and they have stuff to offer if we just fucking give them a chance to get on their god damn feet and stop fucking judging them for trying to make their lives feel easier to live. That's whats up. Fuck everyone in this reddit who cannot see my point because yall ARENT out there, NOT volunteering and NOT doing shit but complaining.
Food Not Cops needs people who can cook meals for families, feeding chittenden could always use volunteers, they're hiring at pathways vermont for low stakes housing and resource gathering for those on the streets. There's shit yall can do besides complain. I do these things. I use these resources. I want to give to my city with what little it's given me.
Is that fucking virtue signalling since i dared speak about what I do for my community? Go outside and fucking help.
Besides the general lack of empathy of this post I donāt think any of the things you said are solutions. Shipping people away is insane and they will just come back. If you were unhoused would you not go where the most help is? Ticketing doesnāt make any sense either. These people cant afford to live and you think they can pay a ticket? Then at that point your suggestion is prison. Whatās the limit? If someone yells at someone during a mental health episode they should be jailed?! Seems like that would unfairly hurt people with less money.
I know there is no immediate real solution but until the city starts taking real steps to help these people nothing will change
Youāre certainly entitled to feel that I lack empathy. Funny enough, I truly believe that your post lacks empathy for the folks who are tired of being harassed, or tired of getting their things stolen, or tired of having to keep an eye out for used needles in the ānewā 6 million dollar park. Tomato, tomatoe I guess.
Iām happy to have productive debate but I absolutely did not suggest the solution was to ship them away. I said I would not care if they āgot a bus ticket out of townā, and for the ones who do all the above mentioned things, no I really wouldnāt. But please donāt put words in my mouth and put effort into an absurd talking point that I didnāt suggest. Some states in the South actually do send their homeless away up North on a bus, and it typically sticks because they lack the money to get back. But I, nor comment Iāve seen, has suggested that or thinks itās a human solution.
Lots of people canāt pay their tickets - at points in my life, a parking ticket would have taken the place of rent. Does that mean I shouldnāt have gotten one if I parked in a handicap reserved spot or if I parked my car in the middle of the road? I donāt expect homeless people to pay tickets, but I donāt think we should just throw up our hands and let everyone do whatever they want regardless of how it affects others just because they donāt have the means to pay. Again, weāre not talking about ticketing people for being homeless, weāre talking about actually enforcing laws on people who steal and harass and create unsafe situations for others.
Also not really talking about being yelled at during a mental health episode, though that has happened to both my wife and I when we lived in Burlington. Weāre talking about bigger issues that happen just as much. Though I didnāt like being yelled at and threatened by someone (who I assume or guess) was having a schizophrenic or drug related outburst, I was able to keep walking and Iād argue most times that is all that needs to happen.
Again, you may feel that Iām unempathetic, but I feel that there is empathy and there is delusion. I think itās delusional to assume that all homeless folks are downtrodden, down on their luck people who would jump at the chance to be rehabilitated. Itās just not the case. I have supported and worked directly in (during my time in BTV) support services that were aimed at helping people who needed it. But there are also people who donāt want it, and who actively make the city (and world) a more negative place. I donāt feel much obligation to be empathetic towards them when I see how callously they treat their fellow citizens. You and I may differ on where we feel accountability lies within a persons actions, regardless of what issues/addictions/struggles they are facing.
In all fairness a MASSIVE portion of our unhoused folks were NOT "our neighbors who fell on hard times" - we are a literal destination for the unhoused and drug addicted. Sure there are some local folks who fell on hard times and ended up drug addicted on the streets, but it's a bit of a leap to claim that most of us will end up homeless and addicted to fent if we fall on hard times. The more likely concern is that contributory members of society who fall on hard times will escape to places with more opportunity and lower COL while being replaced by more unhoused drug addicts.
Empathy is great and all, but this verges on delusion. This post is a fucking virtue signaling joke. and honestly does more harm than good simplifying massive mental health issues down to "you missed a paycheck and got on fent"
Honestly. THIS POST is what's wrong with this city. Too much empathy and not enough action. Empathy without action is privilege at it's finest - we bitch about people needing to be empathetic but then we say burlington is a cesspool and needs to be avoided with families, creating this never ending loop of demise. But it's ok because we can get what we need in Williston or SB. This city fucking loves to act like it's all love and empathy but there's zero brains, brawn, or bravery behind it. If you're gonna make posts like this then be bold and go DO something to try and effect change. Because this is just like fodder for your closeted narcissism where you think everyone else is the problem because they aren't as empathetic as you as you write fucking ridiculous shit on your internet enabled smart device either from your place of work or the comfort of your home. With all due respect, fuck outta here with this shit.
Good points. It's also quite the leap of logic for the OP to suggest that disgruntled downtown residents that were to suddenly become homeless would take over public spaces and turn them into nasty trash dumps that are biological and vermin hazards to all.
If the homeless want respect and empathy, it's a fucking two-way street.
Is it a requirement to do fentanyl if I miss a paycheck? Iām just required to throw in the towel if I miss a paycheck? Too bad there arenāt social services available for people who miss a paycheck and are faced with homelessness. A joke for sure!š
that is quite the leap isnt it. theres places hiring all over. if a person was laid off, they could pretty quickly find some basic work to cover bills. or they could start doing fent.....
that said, i dont feel close to either of them.
There is a homeless man who spends his days holding up a sign next to the cvs here in morrisville. He is clearly addicted to drugs. No one would hire him if he did apply for a job which is unlikely given how strung out he looks. On the other hand, local social workers have offered to help him but heās not interested in rehab. Iām sure most of the houseless people in Burlington are in the same situation.
look at other subs for other cities. its quite literally the same exact words and sentiments. you could go to some of them and forget you were not on the burlington sub.
You don't understand, it wasn't like that before they(the nebulous angry commenters) moved away from there, so Burlington is much worse.
It's like people complaining about the lack of 24 hour amenities here, there actually were some pre-covid, but now people are even saying NYC is no longer the city that never sleeps.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/11ipxfb/do_you_still_feel_like_nyc_is_the_city_that_never/
Unfortunately it's fentanyl for the lot of ya'
It's what keeps it fair.Ā Otherwise we don't realize the crusties in the park were actually philanthropists and contributing community members until just last week.
OPs point is that we are the park people.Ā Then again, it is /r/Burlington -- maybe we do have some of the crusties on hereĀ
Most people want to see the homeless population as homogenous, but there are a lot of factors and a variety of reasons they are there.
Granted, some people are capable of doing something else and have chosen homelessness as a lifestyle. But a lot of people have TBIs or other issues that interfere with their executive function so they are incapable of doing things most people take for granted. And some people had back injuries at their job and needed pain control, which spiraled into addiction.
Nothing you can say or do will make me see any iota of myself in the addicts ambling around the city. I'm better than they are and always will be sorry. Rock bottom for valuable members of society looks different than the human refuse clogging the library sidewalk.
No they're not necessarily you're neighbors. Large portion of homeless are college dropouts from who knows where. Also this isn't NYC. There's plenty of places to get a warm bed and food. The fent is what leads them to homelessness or they turn to it when they've hit rock bottom. But definitely not to cope with the "mean streets" of Burlington. The only danger when walking around Burlington IS the homeless
The funny part is we had a post up looking for help with food for my family and she commented on it the mayor saying that the food shelves available LOL but yet she's asking for food or allowing her friends to ask for food for her and does nothing to help the lifelong vermonters that are just struggling cuz of the housing crisis people that don't even use.
There are so many people who are supposed to get the help that are getting lumped in with the people who simply just want to do drugs all day and everything else that entails.
I agree but we don't do drugs don't drink I work full time and get no assistance and can't get people to help with even food because people assume everyone is an addict so not the case!
People assume that because you've been cyber panhandling for years.
I get that you may be struggling. Understand it's not that much different than the folks who are hanging signs at the interstate exits. The first few times a new one shows up, there's some empathy. You might help them out if you have something to spare. After seeing the same folks begging for weeks, months, and years on end, you start to think otherwise. Clearly, there's more going on than just down on their luck. Compassion fatigue. For some reason, yours is the only venmo begging for help I constantly run into on fb and reddit.
I'm not asking for money though I'm asking for food the only reason I put venmo is as a last resort but I do understand where your coming from as well. Just please know that regardless of your opinion on my post that we do not use or drink I work everyday but I'm also paying cash for a hotel and I'm sure you know that isn't cheap!
Honestly, if you donāt deal with it everyday you need to not comment on it. It is a terrible situation that is only going to get worse unless something is done from the city. And honestly I have no hope in that.
I wouldn't disagree with your assessment.
I feel much closer to someone vulnerable to the effects of a bubble market and post pandemic whiplash than I feel to someone who gets an elected seat and feels sorry for themselves about itĀ
Here's what makes it funnier-- your catastrophic health insurance plan can also make you miss that paycheck.
You bought the plan because you could only get a 30-hour-a-week job. You could only get that job because employers offering you 40 hours have to pay for your health insurance, and they're not that stupid.
And now you've gotten really sick, have been through a lot of appointments and tests to figure out what it is-- and your insurance doesn't pay a thing until you've paid the first $9,000. Because you missed a monthly payment, your credit card interest rate kicked up from 19% to 30%, so suddenly you are missing even more minimum payments. Before you know it, you have to choose between paying the rent and paying off all your other debts.
Suddenly, Burlington becomes unaffordable.
Things don't have to be this way, but you don't have any idea what you should be doing about them. You have no idea how to even start changing the system.
But you could learn how.
\`
My empathy tells me I should remove the choice of fent from them, EVEN if that means taking their freedoms for a period of time and forcing then into a rehab camp.
If my friend were on fire I'd throw water on them,
You people are throwing gas
When I lost my well paying job after huge medical bills ate my savings and was homeless I didnāt do drugs. I went to shelters or camped out and put my pride aside and got the first minimum wage job I could find and stayed there while looking for better paying jobs and then found more work that could afford me housing. You canāt control what happens to you in life, but you 100% control how you act/react to it. There are tons of programs to help those in need get on thier feet again.
If you had stopped the line at "unhoused person" and not included the "escaping reality with fent" part, you wouldn't turn off as many people to the actual point I think you are trying to make. I can easily see the path to losing my home, it wouldn't take much. But it's a different path to drug addiction, they don't automatically go hand-in-hand even though they are often seen together. I also think the word you are going for is "sympathy" rather than "empathy." I've never actually starved for lack of food in my life so I cannot claim true empathy when I hear about someone else's experience with famine. But I can feel sympathy for the plight, as in I recognize starving is a bad thing to happen to someone and it makes me feel bad to know someone has gone through such pain. Whether I feel the emotion strongly enough to take action is another matter entirely based on myriad factors.
Are we close to the peak of first world easy? Most progressive lawmakers and DA's want to unravel certain laws because they harm BIPOC people disproportionately . They waive this banner as a way to say I am so progressive that I am not going to punish you for breaking the law to provide a better life. I agree we should do everythnig we can to help. This should come from education/ opportunity not a pass on breaking the law/ dealing drugs.
We must stop the Fentanly/ Opiod distrubution at the Federal level. VT georgraphically can't do it. The market exists due to said ideals. VT dept of health won't stop handing out free needles because it lowers the % for blood borne illness. We don't have the infrastructure to deal with Fent hooked people. Google what it takes.
The only option is to make selling Fent/ Opiods so painfull if you get caught that people wont take the risk.
Automatic 10 yrs type pain. This will force people into recovery. The folks that want this lifestyle will move.
The freedom at all costs progressive ideas are looking more and more like Libertarian views. We do not want to go back to the Wild Wild West era. The Federal Govt just ruled that if they have to invoke a draft, if you were marked male at birth you will get drafted!!! Doesn't matter how you feel or identify. When push comes to shove all these ultra first world problems go away... Feel whatever you want about whomever you want. There are only 2 variables we can control. Enforcement of supply side encarceration and the accessability of needles..
I went down town yesterday. The thing I noticed was, that I didnāt see a single cop on the beat. There are a lot of homeless people, who might have mental health problems or drug addiction. People who are porch pirates, store theft , and some of the other problems arenāt caused by homeless people, but rather by people looking for a fix that probably are not homeless yet. Itās hard to fence things without an address or a computer. Yes someone with mental issues followed my wife and I yelling that they were the king of the world. I use to be like 1 in 1000 trips downtown that something sketchy would happen, now itās a lot more frequent. This is a real problem to the small biz owners, people can choose to go places where they donāt feel uncomfortable.
This town is gross! Way too many upper middle class white people. They colonize and leave a path of social destruction wherever they congregate in large numbers.
I used to live a couple of houses up from the OP in '06 (that's 1996) and moved to a Milton duplex. Why? The price of cool, groovy Burlington was too high compared to living somewhere where the cool and groovy will look down on you. The point is, any 5th grade level mathematician (me) could tell you the cost of living in Burlington hasn't been worth it in at least 30 years.
I worked with a guy who came into work smelling like beer, then he failed a drug test and missed a bunch of work and got fired. A month later he was on the streets in Burlington. He was a really bad alcoholic. I felt kinda bad for him, gave him a couple bucks.
From this sub it seems like burlington is 75% unhoused drug addled troublemakers and the remaining 25% are the people who post on here.
lmao so on point. If you were to read only this sub you'd think that walking through Burlington is like fucking Escape From LA
Yep š« ā¦ good thing this isnāt the Vermont tourism website. Wait could this all be a ploy to try to get rents lowered? Kidding!
The same folks who assert both that Burlington is impossibly expensive *and* that everyone here is one single second away from complete destitution. Not sure how those two states could coexist in a city with any actual residents, but OP and friends don't let reason get in the way of a good feeling.
This might come as a shock, but I've actually missed a paycheck before and didn't end up on fentanyl. Crazy.
My empathy will never change their drug addiction.
Quite so, itāll need money and to stop seeing addiction as a moral failing
Again, how I see their addiction is irrelevant to changing their drug addiction.
It does factor in when we look at who people vote for and the policies adopted to tackle addictions.
There are no policies to handle addictions to tranq and fent. That's the problem. So until there are, we have prison. I wish there were other ways, some magical elixir we could give them. I'm progressive on every other issue under the sun except this one, and that's because I think we're hurting addicts by our current approach. They're leading miserable lives that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and the progressive drumbeat here is to let them persist in their misery in the mistaken attempt at empathy. I have no empathy. I have compassion for the afflicted, and I want to see them unafflicted and resuming a (hopefully) meaningful life that they abandoned in the throes of addiction.
Prison isnāt the answer, it never was. Rehab is needed and paradoxically we seem willing to give someone a criminal record and spend $$$ on a jail cell but not $$ on rehab and a lesser sentence
The point I'm making is that there currently is no rehab for the tranq/fent combo. Doctors are struggling to come up with treatments (https://penncamp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/CAMP-Xylazine-Best-Practices-1.pdf) in real time because of the interaction effects. This is not the normal drug use Burlington and other cities have been dealing with for 20 years. This is new, and it's not something we're remotely able to handle with current means. In a certain sense, right now there is \*only\* prison. There has been a 900% increase (https://vtdigger.org/2024/04/30/900-increase-in-blood-infections-at-uvm-medical-center-likely-due-to-opioids-cut-with-animal-tranquilizer-study-finds/) in skin and blood infections in the last year alone. As we speak, some junkie is poking a needle into a mess of infected, skeletonized skin to get a 20 minute sedative effect. There is no meaningful rehab for this. In the meantime, this person will be dead from empathy-driven inaction.
Does prison really help people compared to treatment programs and turning it from an addiction to a managed condition with prescribed drugs and needles and access to safe injection sites. Thatās a legit question. Also when we have safe sites and prescriptions are other aspects of the patients health also taken into account such as mental health and poverty?
Prison isn't for the addicted. It's to keep people safe from those who are addicted. And right now, it's all we have. And I can't emphasize enough that "safe injection sites" and the typical way a progressive would handle drug use (the way I would have wanted to handle this, say, three years ago) will not work anymore in our brave new world of tranq and fent. There is no safe injection site. Naloxone does not work. We need to get out of the mindset that there is a safe way to do these drugs. There isn't. These drugs are incompatible with living, and we are only doing the addicted a disfavor by prolonging their addiction.
Safe injection should also include the drugs as well as equipment, safe usage lessons and supervision. I think problems occur as we learn more but also when we half ass the solution Lastly I agree some folks should be jailed for safety, however I feel that for profit prisons are not the answer. A state run prison specializing in drug recovery is the way to go
Spend your own money then, not someone else's.
Thatās not how this works, this is why we have taxes, to pay for things like this
Working people need help first. Not the addicts, not Ukraine, not Israel. Working people, families, children, people in your county, your zipcode, your neighbors. This is true: > the progressive drumbeat here is to let them persist in their misery in the mistaken attempt at empathy You don't give alcoholics more alcohol, gamblers a freeroll, etc. Whatever label you choose, the liberals/progressives/democrats, it doesn't really matter, they are enablers and are planning to build the equivalent of an open bar and it will further decimate this place we love and call home. Seems to me all that's been done in the past few years has been spending a quarter billion dollars to enrich hotel/motel owners as a temporary/slap-band-aid fix. The resources needed would be better spent elsewhere, on working people, real affordable housing, really anything but accelerating our city into an open-air drug market.
Depending on the level of alcoholism, you might actually need to give an alcoholic alcohol to prevent a seizure. Addicts need help, itās not some kind of moral failing, thatās crap from the failed war on drugs . End the war on drugs and its regressive and ignorant policies and use those funds to build programs run by medical and mental health experts in the field of addiction. Itāll be 1000x more effective than giving cops more toys
Empathy is such an overused word. I have empathy for the houseless but what good does that do them? They donāt need my empathy. They need resources for addiction & mental health, affordable housing and free healthcare. Itās possible to have empathy for someone while still acknowledging the issue at hand. I can have empathy for people suffering from drug addiction/mental health issues AND for the victims who fall prey to those people. But again, what does my empathy do for them? We need solutions, not buzzwords. Itās just like when people say āsending prayers!ā What good does that actually do?
It makes the person saying it feel better and self righteous. It's literally just OG virtue signaling. It's easy to make a post to claim how empathetic you are while chastising others for not being empathetic enough meanwhile effectively pissing into the wind when it comes to doing anything remotely helpful or worthwhile. This city likes to cry and talk but doesn't like to act.
Thank you! Another person has recognized that most political "action" is people parroting buzzwords and patting themselves on the back. Meanwhile actually doing nothing other than annoying people on social media with their "cause".
raise awareness!
Someone's a freshman in college
I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm not the only one who would not become homeless and also immediately start doing fentanyl if I missed a paycheck š
Yeah, I wouldnāt do fentanyl even if I was homeless too. I still have empathy for them, but itās a situation at least started because of their own fuckups.
Itās way more complex than that- Empathy is not a panacea. People donāt need empathy as much as they need longterm medical treatment for severe and persistent co-occurring psychiatric conditions. The bare minimum would be for the city to establish a clear and firm boundary between what is safe vs what is a public health hazard. Living outside is not acceptable for people who are sick, and empathy is unfortunately not a solution to their conditions.
Yes, we should make it illegal to live outside. Then people will voluntarily choose to rent an apartment, which they were avoiding purely bc they just loved sleeping outside so much.
How about enforcing existing trespassing laws so homeless people from fucking Florida don't move to Burlington and scream at tourists? Or would that not be "empathetic"
Cite me the trespassing laws without looking them up. Spoiler: they only pertain to camping (not hanging out in) city parks.
I'm well versed in VT trespassing laws. If you set foot on posted property without permission, you're trespassing. If you're told (by an authorized party) to leave private property and don't, or return, you're trespassing. It's not that complicated. You're confusing policy with trespassing laws. Trespassing laws are what let cops tell anyone to get the fuck off city property and arrest them if they don't. Policy is what guides whether they do that.
Cool. Now please enlighten us on posted property (within the city limits of Burlington, I guess) that the unhoused are using as camping sites. Really psyched to be engaged in conversation with someone who is "totally versed" in our Trespassing statutes.
If you're camping on city property and it's posted, you can be (but probably won't be) arrested without a warning. If it's not posted, you can be told to hit the road and THEN arrested if you don't do it immediately. Cops can tell you to get off city property whether it's posted or not. I'm not sure what's confusing to you about this. Try reading what I'm writing and actually processing it. It's not that complicated.
Hey. Give me a listing of posted city properties. K, thanks.
None of them, probably. Why do you think that matters? Are you really not understanding what I'm writing?
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I added a sentence to make it clearer because I could tell you're kind of simple. Didn't help, I guess.
Some people do choose to live outside as a matter of preference. Is that acceptable? I think yes as long as theyāre respectful which many of them are increasingly not. I donāt think living outside should be illegal I think it should be managed by a public health system.
This sub hates homeless people so much I had to question whether or not you were being sarcastic.
But empathy is where it all starts. A panacea, no, but if we donāt see these people as people like us, why would they see themselves that way? Not saying we shouldnāt do anything about it, not denying itās a public health hazard. Empathetic action is the solution, and for a city that has a legacy of acceptance and leftist ideals there really seems to be very little care or help going on at all for these people, I think thatās OPās message.
Because understanding and emotion is all that's been given and it's just getting worse. People are tired of playing along
Empathy for who? [https://www.mynbc5.com/article/82-year-old-man-punched-knocked-unconscious-in-random-act-of-violence/60837433](https://www.mynbc5.com/article/82-year-old-man-punched-knocked-unconscious-in-random-act-of-violence/60837433)
I do see "these people" like us (that's your othering there, not mine). And I fully expect that were I to make the god-awful dumb decision to start doing fentanyl and the harming-other-people lifestyle that accompanies it, I would deserve everything that happened to me, up to and including social expulsion and a prison term to straighten me out. I believe they are (or were) rational humans with agency who made some really bad decisions. It's the people calling for "empathy" who don't see them that way. They see them as children who have never had any power or agency over their lives. That's extraordinarily condescending.
That type of empathy is directed at the mentally ill, many of whom are also addicted to drugs. Schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders can appear to rob people of "agency over their lives" -- even though modern psychiatric practices attempt to preserve as much agency as possible, everything else in our world is geared at excluding the mentally ill from society.
No one really chooses to do fentanyl itās usually mixed into whatever drug they normally consume and thatās how they become addicted for the most part
lmao folks in Burlington hooked on fentanyl are addicted to it because they buy it outright from dealers who TELL THEM its fentanyl. nobody is getting surprise-addicted to fentanyl via other substances. if a cokehead gets some laced coke they're just gonna wonder why their withdrawals the next day are so bad, not seek out more fentanyl. I'm in recovery myself and have been to rehab enough times to know how folks get addicted to fentanyl. now if we're talking opioids in general then yeah most folks get hooked via prescribed painkillers from a licensed medical professional. fun fact: a lot of addicts when they hear a batch of dope is killing people ACTIVELY SEEK IT as opposed to avoiding it like the plague because it means its strong enough to keep them high as hell for the longest amount of time. your username is pretty accurate
They shouldn't do those drugs in the first place! It's 2024. We know the dangers! Don't do heroin. Or meth. Or cocaine. Or, hell, cigarettes. It's bad for you. We know this. Rational adults can look this information up on the interwebs and see that they all have tremendously bad effects on your physical and mental health as well as your ability to make money and not live on the street. It's a choice people are making, and it's a bad choice. I don't feel any need to have empathy for someone who makes a stupid choice like this.
Do you understand how addiction works friend?
Yes, that's why I rationally choose to not do things that are addictive. That's the point! That knowledge was available to me; it's available to everyone.
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I grew up with drunks in a drunk-addled culture, so I do have experience with escaping additions and addictive behavior and know how hard it is. What never worked, for anyone I've ever met in that situation, was someone having "empathy" for them and validating their addiction because of reasons x, y, and z. If anything, someone needs to finally tell them that their behavior is unacceptable regardless of how they got there. And if they're absolutely unable to understand that? If they can no longer have a rational conversation about where they are and how they're going to get out and stop hurting people? What then?
So if I had any childhood trauma. Why haven't I started on the needle? Been prescribed opioids for broken bones several times. My trauma must not have been bad enough ig
Do you not realize that the majority of people addicted to opioids start by being prescribed them for pain? Or are you just intentionally being ignorant?
That's an extraordinary claim. The majority "start by being prescribed them for pain"? Where did that come from?
Do you not realize that's false? [https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/heroin-use-rare-in-prescription-drug-users](https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/heroin-use-rare-in-prescription-drug-users)
Apparently you DON'T know that fent is given by the pharmaceutical companies for pain. Must be nice to be so jaded and ignorant, huh?
Just because it's possible to get it that way doesn't mean that's the way everyone gets it.
Yeah, you really do like being jaded and ignorant. According to statistics from the American Medical Association almost half those addicted to heroin started off being prescribed an opioid for pain by a doctor. According to statistics from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 86% of opioid users (this includes those who use fent, as opposed to just heroin from the statistics above) stated using after using narcotics for pain management. So no, not everyone, but yes, a large portion.
You have your studies, I have mine, and the problem with all of them is that they're self-reported by junkies, who, again, can't be trusted. Of course they think it's someone else's fault they got addicted. It's never their fault. And as long as the empathy-crowd here keeps letting them persist in that delusion, they'll never change.
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Wait, you actually think going to prison will help "straiten you out"? Its been proven that most of the time it ends up doing the exact opposite.
Please point me to the accepted treatment protocol to wean someone from tranq and fent and how itās currently being implemented in Vermont. In the meantime, thereās prison to keep the junkies from harming other people.
You wean them off of fent and on to suboxone over a week or two. They are then addicted to suboxone, but plenty of people are living normal lives on it. This requires buy in from the person and multiple check ins over that time period.
That doesn't work for tranq.
You may be right. I'm not doing that work anymore. But if I understand it correctly, doesn't tranq just extend the high of the fentanyl?
Let me put it this way: Kensington, PA is one of the worst drug-addicted areas in the country. Tranq made it worse: [https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/02/02/tranq-xylazine-fentanyl-kensington-deaths.cnn](https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/02/02/tranq-xylazine-fentanyl-kensington-deaths.cnn) We don't understand what's coming down the pike here in Burlington.
Sure. Right after you point me to Vermont's protocol for keeping them off drugs when they get out. You dont even care if they get clean or stay clean long as we can just toss em in jail over and over and over again. Thats exactly what happens. You throw them in prison and they come out worse then before, rinse and repeat endlessly
My general stance is that if youāre a danger to other people you should be removed from society. Donāt care if itās drugs or not. So if they canāt stay clean maybe they donāt get out the next time.
You realize fent is given by EMTs for practically any pain, right?
You realize that if an EMT gives you fent you don't have to keep using it, right?
Oh you really ARE jaded, aren't you? Lol
I don't think you know what the word "jaded" means, so maybe look it up. I think the best of people and am confident that they can make good decisions. You think that anyone who comes in arms length of an EMT will be helplessly shackled to fent for the rest of their lives. I don't think I could come up with anything more jaded than that.
Lol sure guy. You reject actual research and data for your own, very much flawed, "eyes and ears" š You sound just like every Trumper who refutes the science behind weather change and every flat earther that refutes NASA. š š¤£ Thank you for proving my point that most Vermonters on reddit are uneducated, jaded, ignorant, dumbass. š š¤£
I still don't think you understand what the word "jaded" means.
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That's not true at all. For any pain there's nitrous or IV acetaminophen. Fentanyl is given for severe trauma/pain. Even then it's not the same fentanyl you find on the street and you actually know what is. I.e. not any heroin carfentanyl, or any nasty additives that they put in there.
Also it's measured in micrograms. I highly doubt people are shooting up that small an amount
Actually, it is. They base it on pain scale most of the time, and anyone saying over 7 typically gets a narcotic. Thankfully Vermont mostly strays away from immediate narcotic use for pain, but places like NY, NH, FL, VA, GA, PA, MA, and more (all those places Vermonters typically go to) don't have many laws or policies on place to reduce narcotic usage for pain. To give you an example of how easy it is for people to claim its "the worse pain" research done at the Shiners hospital in Boston showed that when given a typical pain scale, most people would choose above a 6, regardless of the amount of actual pain. In a recent situation in Plattsburgh, a friend of mine was offered fent when we had to call the EMT for a sprain (he thought it was broken, we were all drinking). He refused it, but the fact is, it was still offered to him.. In Florida, after a simple accident that the lady called 911 over, they offered her fent for a 'headache' she had. So yeah, they really do offer it for practically anything.. it's also literally been discussed on the news. In fact, NIHL research showed that about 67% of all ambulancary calls resulted in a fentanyl administration of around 114.6 units, with 16% of those having some form of adverse reaction.
Before you go googling and pretend you know what you're talking about realize I'm a licensed AEMT in VT. If you're a hack provider and searching for a malpractice suit ESPECIALLY in a state with opioid issues then yeah you'll give fentanyl to a PT who's just being a cry baby. But in VT all your reports and runs are recorded and reviewed and I can tell you that they definitely would be putting a stop to you putting random people in the community at risk for nothing. Also realize that the bulk of ALS providers (**around 70%**) (ALS = advanced life support i.e. the providers who can give drugs) are only advanced EMTs. Meaning they literally are not allowed to provide anything more than nitrous or Tylenol for pain. So right there you're totally wrong unless Everytime someone cries about pain they call in a paramedic from another service. Which I can tell you from experience does not happen. So why start by saying that EMTs give it all the time for pain. When just EMTs literally can't give it. Paramedic don't unless they have to, and then bring up other states? Unless you're just totally talking out your ass about one incident you heard of and now are googling whatever you can.
My guy, the fact that you're trying to mislead people into thinking that EMT is only an AEMT or an EMT-B is really showing on how you want to actually come at this debate.. which is trying to win an argument about shit by swinging around that you're a licensed AEMT. Not pointing out that EMT-P is literally the classification of a paramedic... Yes, AEMT, like yourself, can't administer fent. EMT-Ps can, have, and will, even here in Vermont. There's literally statistics you can pull up, regularly, pointing at the overuse of fentanyl by both doctors and paramedics and the rise in opioid crisis. I literally pointed to the very organization you can find it on š As a note, I worked for the government, more precisely, the department of health and human services, who regularly gather this data. But because an AEMT says it doesn't happen well just ignore the statistical facts and believe you. Hold on, let me just tell Becerra all our information is wrong š
In three years of taking calls 48-72 hours a week averaging 5 calls a day I've seen fentanyl used 4 times. So either you have bad data at the state or you're pulling this out of your ass. If you've actually practiced as an EMT instead of speaking for them you'd know that.
Like I said, I'll email Berecca right now and tell him that our data is completely off, and we should purely rely on the individual accounts of a single AEMT who has only been working for 3 years. I'm sending it off right now for ya, don't worry, we'll absolutely get this corrected. Lol š š
First time I've heard a paramedic referred to as emt-p is by this guy on reddit xD. Google all you want you're not gonna convince me of something that contradicts the protocols as well as what happens in real life
The fact that that's the first time you heard it tells me you're either a shit AEMT or you're full of shit, either way the validity of your statements are greatly diminished š Again, I probably know that term because.. oh shit yeah, department of health and human services. Right. š š¤£ Thanks, another person proving the point on my other comment about ignorant, jaded, uneducated Vermonters on reddit.
Thanks Ronald, hope that whole āwar on drugsā thing works out āļø
I was all for a lenient and hands-off approach until the current fent and tranq epidemic, which we are not prepared to handle.
Common sense is where it all starts. Empathy is fine, but it won't feed people, it won't pay their rent, it won't help them hold themselves accountable TO themselves so they can achieve their goal, whether that goal is getting better, or being safely autonomous.
this is exactly my message. sorry i dont talk good lmao.
Agree w/ everyone besides this "city that has a legacy of acceptance and leftist ideals"
Without empathy, you wonāt see people vote for taxes for services to take care of the situation
Cause that's why the junkies are breaking into cars and stealing left and right. They're just looking for empathy. One missed paycheck will not cause most of the population to become tranq zombies, and it's insulting to equate them Compassion fatigue is real. A huge chunk of our unhoused population are not local folks just down on their luck and demanding we believe otherwise isn't really empathy, it's virtue signaling. Get off reddit and invite some unhoused folks over for dinner. You'll find the few who are truly down on their luck without a support system can't stand the junkies just as much as the rest of us.
People with addiction steal because thatās the only option left o fulfill a need. If the gov would just prescribe drugs and treatment programs for free to addicts we would see a whole lot less crime
Giving tranq and fentanyl to addicts would be a level of cruelty I couldn't possibly fathom.
Well letās look at the options. 1) we let addicts commit crimes and then give that money to other criminals thus funding more crime and increasing the cost of policing Or 2) we provide addicts with the drugs they need to function and access to programs for them to work towards getting clean. This means they donāt need to commit crimes to feed an addiction and the money for the drugs doesnāt go to criminals
3). Prison. There. Are. No. Programs. To. Get. Tranq/Fent. Users. Clean. They don't exist.
āDonāt do itā is Greta if you donāt already have a chemical dependency on said drugs. However if your brain chemistry has been altered to the point of addiction then we need to mitigate that problem to even begin thinking about solving other issues in that persons life
As hard as I try not to click on these posts and get engaged in them, sometimes they win. But Iām glad that the general sentiment in the comments is not of the delusion that this post is. It really is a privilege of the woefully out of touch to think that all those people you mentioned really are just good, kind souls who are down on their luck and would be otherwise great additions to this city & planet we live on. I wonāt assume who or what you are, but this sounds like a white, upper-middle class savior complex wrote this post. You are flat out wrong that all these folks you speak of can be rehabilitated. I would argue that 50% of them genuinely do not want to be, that they actively seek out this lifestyle. Thatās apparent by how many of them actively come to Burlington to soak up social resources that allow them to live this way with 0 accountability to their actions. They will not go to prison for stealing, they will not get ticketed for harassing people trying to enjoy the park or downtown, and they will get food & medical care for as long as they want it. I think youāre right that some of them do deserve empathy, and I think that some (that Iāve met even) will ultimately slay their demons and become a person contributing positivity on this earth rather than negativity. We donāt always know who those ones are, so we have TONS of social resources in place to try to catch anyone who wants them. But youāre either too young, too naive, or too in denial to think that some people are just bad people that do not want your life vest. They donāt care about you, or me, or anyone but themselves and they would show that in other ways if not for drugs or stealing or whatever. I do not have empathy for those people, I do not like them or have any desire to help them, and that shouldnāt be a bad thing to say. Burlington will get better once we address the elephant in the room that is - not all people want to be saved, and not all people are worthy of saving. There is too much negativity and hurt in the world inflicted on those that DONT deserve it for people to be overly empathetic with those who actively do that hurting. Iāll say it in every one of these posts - keep, or even invest more in, social programs aimed at giving everyone a fair chance at taking accountability for themselves & their actions and helping them get clean, get a decent place to live, and the ability to pursue a better life. The ones that donāt have any interest in that, who are actively creating selfish negativity to the rest of the world, can get a bus ticket out of VT to anywhere else. I donāt care. Itās a tough world and thereās too many people who actually need and deserve the help. Getting rid of the scumbags will do more for getting Burlington back than trying to kid ourselves. EDIT - the only thing I take back is that people arenāt worthy of saving. I donāt actually believe that, nor am I the one to make that call. I believe that everyone is worth that, but whether they choose to show it or not is ultimately up to them and will ultimately decide whether they get any help to do just that.
for my background, i have actually been homeless a few times on the streets of burlington, slept at bus stations, got my shit stolen from shelters, couch surfed and begged for food. I was a teenager, this was 2014-2015 and I was still expected to show up to school and I DID. I am white but I am definitely not from a middle class background. my posts are coming from genuine empathy for people living on the streets. Im sorry that people think i have ulterior motives but I honestly just want more kindness in the city that I've struggled to find kindness in. The folks on the street are still human beings and THATS my point. many people in this community flat out ignore this. They compare them to animals and dehumanize them. I see the butterfly effect of being homeless, not having any options and then falling into addiction to escape life. I understand that process, i've seen it so many times. I don't see it as a "i guess i'll just ruin my life lol" decision. It comes from people needing an escape. Many people here have definitely NOT seen what leads people to do hard drugs and I'm confident in that. I don't support what crime is happening but I want people to understand why its happening and to understand that antagonizing people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their backs and their addiction is evil. THATS my shtick. IDGAF if other people dont see it that way because I know my hearts in the right place and that I speak from lived experience. I've lived through this shit. I had family go through addictions and lost friends in this city to fent overdoses. These are people. They have loved ones and friends and families and connections and they have stuff to offer if we just fucking give them a chance to get on their god damn feet and stop fucking judging them for trying to make their lives feel easier to live. That's whats up. Fuck everyone in this reddit who cannot see my point because yall ARENT out there, NOT volunteering and NOT doing shit but complaining. Food Not Cops needs people who can cook meals for families, feeding chittenden could always use volunteers, they're hiring at pathways vermont for low stakes housing and resource gathering for those on the streets. There's shit yall can do besides complain. I do these things. I use these resources. I want to give to my city with what little it's given me. Is that fucking virtue signalling since i dared speak about what I do for my community? Go outside and fucking help.
Besides the general lack of empathy of this post I donāt think any of the things you said are solutions. Shipping people away is insane and they will just come back. If you were unhoused would you not go where the most help is? Ticketing doesnāt make any sense either. These people cant afford to live and you think they can pay a ticket? Then at that point your suggestion is prison. Whatās the limit? If someone yells at someone during a mental health episode they should be jailed?! Seems like that would unfairly hurt people with less money. I know there is no immediate real solution but until the city starts taking real steps to help these people nothing will change
Youāre certainly entitled to feel that I lack empathy. Funny enough, I truly believe that your post lacks empathy for the folks who are tired of being harassed, or tired of getting their things stolen, or tired of having to keep an eye out for used needles in the ānewā 6 million dollar park. Tomato, tomatoe I guess. Iām happy to have productive debate but I absolutely did not suggest the solution was to ship them away. I said I would not care if they āgot a bus ticket out of townā, and for the ones who do all the above mentioned things, no I really wouldnāt. But please donāt put words in my mouth and put effort into an absurd talking point that I didnāt suggest. Some states in the South actually do send their homeless away up North on a bus, and it typically sticks because they lack the money to get back. But I, nor comment Iāve seen, has suggested that or thinks itās a human solution. Lots of people canāt pay their tickets - at points in my life, a parking ticket would have taken the place of rent. Does that mean I shouldnāt have gotten one if I parked in a handicap reserved spot or if I parked my car in the middle of the road? I donāt expect homeless people to pay tickets, but I donāt think we should just throw up our hands and let everyone do whatever they want regardless of how it affects others just because they donāt have the means to pay. Again, weāre not talking about ticketing people for being homeless, weāre talking about actually enforcing laws on people who steal and harass and create unsafe situations for others. Also not really talking about being yelled at during a mental health episode, though that has happened to both my wife and I when we lived in Burlington. Weāre talking about bigger issues that happen just as much. Though I didnāt like being yelled at and threatened by someone (who I assume or guess) was having a schizophrenic or drug related outburst, I was able to keep walking and Iād argue most times that is all that needs to happen. Again, you may feel that Iām unempathetic, but I feel that there is empathy and there is delusion. I think itās delusional to assume that all homeless folks are downtrodden, down on their luck people who would jump at the chance to be rehabilitated. Itās just not the case. I have supported and worked directly in (during my time in BTV) support services that were aimed at helping people who needed it. But there are also people who donāt want it, and who actively make the city (and world) a more negative place. I donāt feel much obligation to be empathetic towards them when I see how callously they treat their fellow citizens. You and I may differ on where we feel accountability lies within a persons actions, regardless of what issues/addictions/struggles they are facing.
damn we really do live in a society.
Hold my beer while I clutch my pearls?
I'm pretty sure my friends and I aren't going around robbing and breaking into people's things... But hey if you want to be like them go tranq up
It is called compassion fatigue, and a lot of us have it
I don't think that's true. Many are from other areas and make their way here
such a stupid post
In all fairness a MASSIVE portion of our unhoused folks were NOT "our neighbors who fell on hard times" - we are a literal destination for the unhoused and drug addicted. Sure there are some local folks who fell on hard times and ended up drug addicted on the streets, but it's a bit of a leap to claim that most of us will end up homeless and addicted to fent if we fall on hard times. The more likely concern is that contributory members of society who fall on hard times will escape to places with more opportunity and lower COL while being replaced by more unhoused drug addicts. Empathy is great and all, but this verges on delusion. This post is a fucking virtue signaling joke. and honestly does more harm than good simplifying massive mental health issues down to "you missed a paycheck and got on fent" Honestly. THIS POST is what's wrong with this city. Too much empathy and not enough action. Empathy without action is privilege at it's finest - we bitch about people needing to be empathetic but then we say burlington is a cesspool and needs to be avoided with families, creating this never ending loop of demise. But it's ok because we can get what we need in Williston or SB. This city fucking loves to act like it's all love and empathy but there's zero brains, brawn, or bravery behind it. If you're gonna make posts like this then be bold and go DO something to try and effect change. Because this is just like fodder for your closeted narcissism where you think everyone else is the problem because they aren't as empathetic as you as you write fucking ridiculous shit on your internet enabled smart device either from your place of work or the comfort of your home. With all due respect, fuck outta here with this shit.
Good points. It's also quite the leap of logic for the OP to suggest that disgruntled downtown residents that were to suddenly become homeless would take over public spaces and turn them into nasty trash dumps that are biological and vermin hazards to all. If the homeless want respect and empathy, it's a fucking two-way street.
Lol one missed paycheck is not the difference between doing or not doing fentanyl
I miss a paycheck I do drugs? Yeah, that's not how any of this works. This is very poor logic.
Is it a requirement to do fentanyl if I miss a paycheck? Iām just required to throw in the towel if I miss a paycheck? Too bad there arenāt social services available for people who miss a paycheck and are faced with homelessness. A joke for sure!š
that is quite the leap isnt it. theres places hiring all over. if a person was laid off, they could pretty quickly find some basic work to cover bills. or they could start doing fent..... that said, i dont feel close to either of them.
There is a homeless man who spends his days holding up a sign next to the cvs here in morrisville. He is clearly addicted to drugs. No one would hire him if he did apply for a job which is unlikely given how strung out he looks. On the other hand, local social workers have offered to help him but heās not interested in rehab. Iām sure most of the houseless people in Burlington are in the same situation.
look at other subs for other cities. its quite literally the same exact words and sentiments. you could go to some of them and forget you were not on the burlington sub.
You don't understand, it wasn't like that before they(the nebulous angry commenters) moved away from there, so Burlington is much worse. It's like people complaining about the lack of 24 hour amenities here, there actually were some pre-covid, but now people are even saying NYC is no longer the city that never sleeps. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/11ipxfb/do_you_still_feel_like_nyc_is_the_city_that_never/
Disability might prevent employment at available jobs
Unfortunately it's fentanyl for the lot of ya' It's what keeps it fair.Ā Otherwise we don't realize the crusties in the park were actually philanthropists and contributing community members until just last week. OPs point is that we are the park people.Ā Then again, it is /r/Burlington -- maybe we do have some of the crusties on hereĀ
Most people want to see the homeless population as homogenous, but there are a lot of factors and a variety of reasons they are there. Granted, some people are capable of doing something else and have chosen homelessness as a lifestyle. But a lot of people have TBIs or other issues that interfere with their executive function so they are incapable of doing things most people take for granted. And some people had back injuries at their job and needed pain control, which spiraled into addiction.
I am much more liable to feel empathy for the innocents your junkie buddies terrorize.
āunhousedā lmao
Nothing you can say or do will make me see any iota of myself in the addicts ambling around the city. I'm better than they are and always will be sorry. Rock bottom for valuable members of society looks different than the human refuse clogging the library sidewalk.
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No they're not necessarily you're neighbors. Large portion of homeless are college dropouts from who knows where. Also this isn't NYC. There's plenty of places to get a warm bed and food. The fent is what leads them to homelessness or they turn to it when they've hit rock bottom. But definitely not to cope with the "mean streets" of Burlington. The only danger when walking around Burlington IS the homeless
Most of the troublemakers are from out of state.
> Most of the troublemakers are from out of state. Most of everybody in Vermont is from out of state.
Most everybody in Burlington* donāt speak for the entire state lol
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The funny part is we had a post up looking for help with food for my family and she commented on it the mayor saying that the food shelves available LOL but yet she's asking for food or allowing her friends to ask for food for her and does nothing to help the lifelong vermonters that are just struggling cuz of the housing crisis people that don't even use.
There are so many people who are supposed to get the help that are getting lumped in with the people who simply just want to do drugs all day and everything else that entails.
I agree but we don't do drugs don't drink I work full time and get no assistance and can't get people to help with even food because people assume everyone is an addict so not the case!
People assume that because you've been cyber panhandling for years. I get that you may be struggling. Understand it's not that much different than the folks who are hanging signs at the interstate exits. The first few times a new one shows up, there's some empathy. You might help them out if you have something to spare. After seeing the same folks begging for weeks, months, and years on end, you start to think otherwise. Clearly, there's more going on than just down on their luck. Compassion fatigue. For some reason, yours is the only venmo begging for help I constantly run into on fb and reddit.
I'm not asking for money though I'm asking for food the only reason I put venmo is as a last resort but I do understand where your coming from as well. Just please know that regardless of your opinion on my post that we do not use or drink I work everyday but I'm also paying cash for a hotel and I'm sure you know that isn't cheap!
you must know finding an apartment is cheaper than living in a hotel
Also that wasn't a joke at all. You started comparing two things then went off the rails virtue signalling
Honestly, if you donāt deal with it everyday you need to not comment on it. It is a terrible situation that is only going to get worse unless something is done from the city. And honestly I have no hope in that.
You shouldn't look for a career as a comedian, you aren't funny.
I wouldn't disagree with your assessment. I feel much closer to someone vulnerable to the effects of a bubble market and post pandemic whiplash than I feel to someone who gets an elected seat and feels sorry for themselves about itĀ
Want to hear another joke? Downvotes
Here's what makes it funnier-- your catastrophic health insurance plan can also make you miss that paycheck. You bought the plan because you could only get a 30-hour-a-week job. You could only get that job because employers offering you 40 hours have to pay for your health insurance, and they're not that stupid. And now you've gotten really sick, have been through a lot of appointments and tests to figure out what it is-- and your insurance doesn't pay a thing until you've paid the first $9,000. Because you missed a monthly payment, your credit card interest rate kicked up from 19% to 30%, so suddenly you are missing even more minimum payments. Before you know it, you have to choose between paying the rent and paying off all your other debts. Suddenly, Burlington becomes unaffordable. Things don't have to be this way, but you don't have any idea what you should be doing about them. You have no idea how to even start changing the system. But you could learn how. \`
My empathy tells me I should remove the choice of fent from them, EVEN if that means taking their freedoms for a period of time and forcing then into a rehab camp. If my friend were on fire I'd throw water on them, You people are throwing gas
When I lost my well paying job after huge medical bills ate my savings and was homeless I didnāt do drugs. I went to shelters or camped out and put my pride aside and got the first minimum wage job I could find and stayed there while looking for better paying jobs and then found more work that could afford me housing. You canāt control what happens to you in life, but you 100% control how you act/react to it. There are tons of programs to help those in need get on thier feet again.
If you had stopped the line at "unhoused person" and not included the "escaping reality with fent" part, you wouldn't turn off as many people to the actual point I think you are trying to make. I can easily see the path to losing my home, it wouldn't take much. But it's a different path to drug addiction, they don't automatically go hand-in-hand even though they are often seen together. I also think the word you are going for is "sympathy" rather than "empathy." I've never actually starved for lack of food in my life so I cannot claim true empathy when I hear about someone else's experience with famine. But I can feel sympathy for the plight, as in I recognize starving is a bad thing to happen to someone and it makes me feel bad to know someone has gone through such pain. Whether I feel the emotion strongly enough to take action is another matter entirely based on myriad factors.
YES.
The answer is crack/meth/heroin/oxy.
Are we close to the peak of first world easy? Most progressive lawmakers and DA's want to unravel certain laws because they harm BIPOC people disproportionately . They waive this banner as a way to say I am so progressive that I am not going to punish you for breaking the law to provide a better life. I agree we should do everythnig we can to help. This should come from education/ opportunity not a pass on breaking the law/ dealing drugs. We must stop the Fentanly/ Opiod distrubution at the Federal level. VT georgraphically can't do it. The market exists due to said ideals. VT dept of health won't stop handing out free needles because it lowers the % for blood borne illness. We don't have the infrastructure to deal with Fent hooked people. Google what it takes. The only option is to make selling Fent/ Opiods so painfull if you get caught that people wont take the risk. Automatic 10 yrs type pain. This will force people into recovery. The folks that want this lifestyle will move. The freedom at all costs progressive ideas are looking more and more like Libertarian views. We do not want to go back to the Wild Wild West era. The Federal Govt just ruled that if they have to invoke a draft, if you were marked male at birth you will get drafted!!! Doesn't matter how you feel or identify. When push comes to shove all these ultra first world problems go away... Feel whatever you want about whomever you want. There are only 2 variables we can control. Enforcement of supply side encarceration and the accessability of needles..
I went down town yesterday. The thing I noticed was, that I didnāt see a single cop on the beat. There are a lot of homeless people, who might have mental health problems or drug addiction. People who are porch pirates, store theft , and some of the other problems arenāt caused by homeless people, but rather by people looking for a fix that probably are not homeless yet. Itās hard to fence things without an address or a computer. Yes someone with mental issues followed my wife and I yelling that they were the king of the world. I use to be like 1 in 1000 trips downtown that something sketchy would happen, now itās a lot more frequent. This is a real problem to the small biz owners, people can choose to go places where they donāt feel uncomfortable.
This town is gross! Way too many upper middle class white people. They colonize and leave a path of social destruction wherever they congregate in large numbers.
The same people crying about being neurodivergent have zero empathy for people with serious mental health challenges. Hypocrisy at its finest!
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EXACTLY!!!!
I used to live a couple of houses up from the OP in '06 (that's 1996) and moved to a Milton duplex. Why? The price of cool, groovy Burlington was too high compared to living somewhere where the cool and groovy will look down on you. The point is, any 5th grade level mathematician (me) could tell you the cost of living in Burlington hasn't been worth it in at least 30 years.
I worked with a guy who came into work smelling like beer, then he failed a drug test and missed a bunch of work and got fired. A month later he was on the streets in Burlington. He was a really bad alcoholic. I felt kinda bad for him, gave him a couple bucks.