Safe Injections: An Interview with Jeffco Resident Zane Gordon
A discussion developed on nextdoor.com regarding Jefferson County dispensing needles in areas where residents experience problems associated with drug use and homeless. Zane Gordon responded with some of the most well-researched answers so we decided to go more in depth with an interview.
Part 1
Part 2
Partial transcript and interview highlights:
GORDON: Why are you providing needles? To continue it. Right? I mean, that’s a very important point. And, I take a look at it from an economic view. Economics is the study of incentives. That’s really what it is. Ultimately, What drives human behavior and decision?
And so obviously, you don’t pay your taxes. Going to jail isn’t a very unfavorable aspect, right? That’s a negative consequence. There are something called nudges. This is behavioral.
There’s a study out there regarding providing small cash incentive. And what they see is that even with a small cash incentive had a strong positive influence on getting employees off cigarette use.
So the concept of nudging is like you’re just kind of nudging people to where you want to get them. Because you’re saying that there was a reason, they now they had a reason to perform in a certain way.
An incentive has to spur more use otherwise you take all of economics and you throw out the window. This is this is revolutionary in the concept of economics: Hey, we can provide a nudge to people and they won’t respond to it.
MORGAN: The argument is that we’re talking about mental health and addiction and they can’t help themselves.
GORDON: So it will be happening no matter what. Absolutely. The idea is do you harm reduction?
The problem is you are nudging people to using it. Right, you’re making it easier. You’re not disincentivizing.
Marketing is a type of nudge. We banned a certain character from tobacco. Joe Camel? Because of this very concept. Joe Camel wasn’t handing out cigarettes to kids. To get them addicted to smoking. Cigarettes. All he was was a cool character. It’s cooler than Mickey Mouse is what they always would say and the the kids.
And that was enough to get a whole segment of marketing banned. Well, now we’re physically doing something. I feel for people that are addicted. We need to help them. Not enable it. Well isn’t this helping them?
You’re helping them stay safe. They will live longer because they have a safe. I am Narcan life saving drugs.
And I don’t believe that necessarily the case. And there’s many multiple reasons why. Okay, so first of all, these people can’t help themselves. They’re looking for their next hit. They will forego anything. Kids, family. Food, right? They’re homeless, many of them, because they’re addicted and they’re spending all the resource, whatever they can find.
Ok, I’m looking for my next tip. I don’t feel like walking 2 blocks. Where am I going to use that drug? Where I’m sitting. Now, you’re assuming that you know, simultaneously, The needles are going to incentivize more use, cause you’re your make needles more readily available.
The other thing is you’re going to concentrate.
The cops have to Stop. Enforcing certain laws around these consumption. The Alberta Study from March, twenty- indicates that.
This facility, the only way it can be successful is if you don’t arrest the clients. The people that are addicted. If you arrest people, word gets out. They scatter. The facility is without clients. Okay, so you have to stop and forcing things like your possession.
So the cops have to kind of back off in that regard. But here’s the thing is that they’re not mobile, not generally speaking, right? But if they’re hanging around the safe consumption site. They need somebody to bring their supplies. So the unlicensed pharmacists. The drug dealers have to come into that area. Right to supply. The addicts and the client, the facility clientele.
So now possession and sale has to be unofficially not enforced.
The Alberta study talks about people’s feelings and what they’re seeing. It also takes a look at police calls within 500 meters of each of the radius around the facility, the neighborhood and the city at large. Generally speaking, on overall prime goes up in that 500 meter versus the rest of the city.
The New York Post reports that open air drug markets. Drug is that the cops can’t enforce the laws. So then it’s openly used. It’s openly traded and sold. It’s reported in the news and it’s reported in the study.
And logically it has to be that way for the facility to even have clients. So you can’t you can’t refute it in any way that I can think.
Can providing needles ever decrease drug use?
How can it reduce drug? That would be that’s blowing up the entire history and the entire field of economics. You’re incentivizing people to consume more and you get less often. That would be revolutionary. In economics. That would that would be that would be the Nobel Prize in economics.
On Harm Reduction
GORDON: Now, the desire to reduce harm. There’s a noble one. It’s rooted in compassion. You’re trying to help people.
There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who is absolutely set on their righteousness of their activity and wants to help. That’s what the Crusades were. What the Spanish Inquisition was. People who believe they’re righteous and want to help do some really bad things. Not because they don’t want to help, but because they’re blinded to the harm that they’re causing.
That’s what would be happening here. Providing a needle to somebody isn’t solving the problem. It’s trying to cover up a symptom of the call. Let’s focus on solving the problem
Enabling isn’t compassion. It’s hate.
The discussion continues by examining programs that work, such as the Denver Rescue Mission, how the programs start with grants and discussing if grants are really “free” money.