💾 Archived View for splint.rs › incentives.gmi captured on 2024-05-10 at 10:49:09. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-28)
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Starting the night shift in the homeless unit, I heard in the handover that someone had just lost his best friend and mother within a short period. He used heroine on occasion, and had come off it of late.
I decided to take the direct route to the problem, so when he came back I said to him "I heard your friend and mother died. You getting on okay?".
He said kinda-yes, then I asked "Are you going to take heroine tonight?". He's a chilled-out guy, so I knew he wouldn't take offence to the question, and wouldn't give me any lectures about how I clearly don't understand what it's like to need heroine, and have everyone you care about die. He just said "yes".
I asked if I could give him a knock on the door every 20-30 minutes, and he'd just have to say 'hey'. If he didn't respond, I'd open the door, and check his breathing.
We sat in his room, smoked some fags, had a chat about his friend, and ex-girlfriend, and at the end I asked if he was sure about the heroine idea. He was sure, and he knew how to take it safely.
The night went fine, and I decided to stick nothing about this in the report. Heroine isn't allowed in the homeless units, obviously, so I broke the rules of the unit, and maybe did something illegal. I don't know.
The obvious point I want to go over is just the incentives of repeat decisions. With this established, the next time he was taking heroine, he could tell me, because it went fine last time.
On the other hand, if I'd called the police, or put it in the log, he (and anyone he spoke to in the unit) would know not to talk about taking heroine, to always lie about possession of heroine.
The rules do not, and will never take account of this. All rules for all institutions will presume that the rules themselves are perfect. But in reality, the rules stop me doing checks, so they could kill someone.
The rules are dangerous and following them uncritically is irresponsible.