Death Highlights Problems with Drugs and Group Sex at Occupy Vancouver

A woman has died of a possible drug overdose at "Occupy Vancouver" with several more having been treated for problems involving drugs in the past few days. The Vancouver Fire Department and provincial health service are expressing concern at needle sharing, drug dealing and public group sex at the encampment.

www.cbc.ca...
www.vancouversun.com...

Do 99% of Canadians engage in public group sex and recreational drug use? (Not a dig, just a question.)

No, no they do not.
Though drugs are a common thing in canada sometimes (it depends on where you go), there are festivals out here (usually music), and 8/10 people are drunk/inebriated by other substances.

Think burning man.

Originally posted by AtticusRye
A woman has died of a possible drug overdose at "Occupy Vancouver" with several more having been treated for problems involving drugs in the past few days. The Vancouver Fire Department and provincial health service are expressing concern at needle sharing, drug dealing and public group sex at the encampment.

www.cbc.ca...
www.vancouversun.com...

Do 99% of Canadians engage in public group sex and recreational drug use? (Not a dig, just a question.)

No, but it's a good guess most rock tours do. Let me know the next time you get invited on the bus. Not short bus...

So what percentage of Canada do Occupy Vancouver protesters represent then if not 99%? Are they the 17%?

reply to post by AtticusRye

So what percentage of Canada do Occupy Vancouver protesters represent then if not 99%? Are they the 17%?

...what?

i live here and i just think, god it was inevitable wasn't it, that someone would die.
but thats also a generalization. in every group of random strangers your going to have those people.
not everyone there is an orgyhippy. and this simply puts front and centre the problems the downtown eastside faces every single day. although groupsex? I havent heard of that at all, ever. this is news to me.

Originally posted by TsukiLunar
reply to post by AtticusRye

 

So what percentage of Canada do Occupy Vancouver protesters represent then if not 99%? Are they the 17%?

...what?

The consensus seems to be public group sex and needle sharing are not practices embraced by 99% of the Canadian population. And yet, these are practices embraced by attendees of the Occupy Vancouver festival/carnival. So, my question, is Occupy Vancouver composed of:

(1) the 99%
(2) the Bottom 1%
(3) some figure in between (e.g. 17%)

Yeah, Lol,
Theres always going to be some people who are doing those kinds of things, and end up doing said things, but its the absolute minority,
Most of the people are normal, and hell, its cold,
Some sex will keep you warm!

Originally posted by AzureSky
Most of the people are normal

The VFD and BC Health Service seems to disagree with this assertion.

Which is not to say they are correct, just to point out that it appears to be a question in dispute.

I heard rumors that some of the 99% enjoy having sex...to think...gah, disgusted now.

And here I thought the world was made up of priests and nuns.

Anyhow, meh...in every large and diverse group, you got all sorts of people. I bet there are virgins that don't even drink coffee as well...granted, not as newsworthy to report on them though.


So, are they having sex in the streets then? giant Canadian orgies just sort of slithering down the sidewalks with needles and the smell of mary in the air...?

I am failing to see the point in this thread actually, so gonna go play a game instead.

I've gone down to check-out Occupy San Diego when I was there last week. If they were representative of other "Occupy" events, these are not gatherings of the swath of mainstream society. These are the Bottom 1% who have assembled.

In Marxist theory there is a class of people below the Proletariat - for whom the liberation struggle is directed. It is the Lumpenproletariat. From marxists.org:

LUMPENPROLETARIAT: Roughly translated as slum workers or the mob, this term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements. In times of prolonged crisis (depression), innumerable young people also, who cannot find an opportunity to enter into the social organism as producers, are pushed into this limbo of the outcast. Here demagogues and fascists of various stripes find some area of the mass base in time of struggle and social breakdown, when the ranks of the Lumpenproletariat are enormously swelled by ruined and declassed elements from all layers of a society in decay.

www.marxists.org...

Marxism rejects the Lumpenproletariat as being a "rag class" that cannot participate in the revolutionary struggle but only derail and distract it.

For anyone who has not seen an "Occupy" event first hand, but supports the notion, I know this may be hard to accept. I was, myself, shocked as what one sees in the news are middle class moms with children, hardworking union members, etc. I didn't see a single one of those. I saw a mix of the (chronic) homeless, drug pushers and members of every class of the fringes of society, all gathered together in a rally of fewer than 100 people.

Originally posted by Americanist

Originally posted by AtticusRye
A woman has died of a possible drug overdose at "Occupy Vancouver" with several more having been treated for problems involving drugs in the past few days. The Vancouver Fire Department and provincial health service are expressing concern at needle sharing, drug dealing and public group sex at the encampment.

www.cbc.ca...
www.vancouversun.com...

Do 99% of Canadians engage in public group sex and recreational drug use? (Not a dig, just a question.)

No, but it's a good guess most rock tours do. Let me know the next time you get invited on the bus. Not short bus...

Problem is, this isn't a rock tour. It's supposed to be a focused demonstration against Wall Street and the moneyed corruption of government, globally, not the umpteenth "recreation" of Woodstock. Those who get busted only provide fodder for those who seek to discount what this grassroots movement truly embodies; "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!"

Originally posted by AtticusRye

Originally posted by AzureSky
Most of the people are normal

The VFD and BC Health Service seems to disagree with this assertion.

Which is not to say they are correct, just to point out that it appears to be a question in dispute.

It's been years since I lived in Vancouver, but there's areas around Van that are rougher than others. It has its hooker districts, and it's homeless and drug districts. It's all concentrated in those areas, and if you don't go downtown, specifically where these areas are, the rest of Vancouver is so nice, that you might not even know that those rough areas exist.

The weather there is mild compared to any large city to the east all year around, so it probably has the largest homeless/outdoor living than anywhere else in Canada.

Also, being a main port, it gets lots of drugs imported through........

If the cops and the government spent less time worrying about what people do for fun, and more time keeping corporate and banking greed under control, and bottom-feeding lobbyists and crooked politicians in check, perhaps OWS wouldn't have been necessary in the first place.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
If the cops and the government spent less time worrying about what people do for fun, and more time keeping corporate and banking greed under control, and bottom-feeding lobbyists and crooked politicians in check, perhaps OWS wouldn't have been necessary in the first place.

Despite the collective thought of OWS, sharing heroin needles and having MMMFF five-way group sex on a park bench across from a school is a legitimate matter of concern for public health and hygiene, not a simple question of "having fun."

Originally posted by AtticusRye

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
If the cops and the government spent less time worrying about what people do for fun, and more time keeping corporate and banking greed under control, and bottom-feeding lobbyists and crooked politicians in check, perhaps OWS wouldn't have been necessary in the first place.

Despite the collective thought of OWS, sharing heroin needles and having MMMFF five-way group sex on a park bench across from a school is a legitimate matter of concern for public health and hygiene, not a simple question of "having fun."

edit on 5-11-2011 by AtticusRye because: (no reason given)

You're acting as is OWS is collectively participating in this kind of action.

It's not. If you're neighbor is a drug addict, should that reflect negatively on you because you share the same street, in the same neighborhood?

Protesters can't control what each and every person does when they show up.

People who shoot heroin are going to do it whether there's a protest or not. Could have just as easily have OD'd in their home the day before.