War against Drugs
With todays date there is a new rule (or law, call it what you want) concerning the Resselpark/Karlspatz drug scene.
Like every city, Vienna has rather well known places where you can easily find drugs of any kind. The Resselpark has been one of those public meetups for a rather long time, and the only problem (besides of the drugs) was that there are schools around this park, which of course would make every parent paranoid. Starting with today, there is a “schutzzone” around of the “privaten evangelischen Volksschule” (=primary school) and “evangelischen Kooperative Mittelschule” (=middle school). beat me silly, i cant come up with the right english word for it. lets say, there are police men telling every junky to leave the place. well, to say it more precisely: to make everybody who could possibly be a junky/dealer go away.
There have been already little encounters of said drug addicts and mentioned police men during the day. nothing bad or brutal. while many of the people who wanted that security-whatever-zone-around-the-schools think that every junky is a possible kidnapper, someone who stings their kids with Aids infected needles, the drug addicts themself have now to face a rather logical question: Where to go now? According to them there was/is a strict law about kids: “leave them alone.” while many of them say they did never ask kids for money, a few kids mentioned exactly those encounters of “poor people” and them.
Of course we could start discussing the pro and contra about that Schutzzone, which is namely the first one in Austria (the first one that is about Kids and Drug Addicts.). While many say the state has not the right to tell people to leave a public place (which could be thought as an attack on human rights), others say the kids need more safety. You can find a rather high amount of comments at the standard.at
(which is only in german, sorry folks). Plus, a statement of one of the school principals.
i leave it to every reader if its a good idea or not.
Related posts:
In Graz, the capital of Styria, one of Austrians federal district, the local government has imposed a so called “punker-law”, which gives policemen the right to fine people for the “obscene perusage of public places” (which means begging for money). This can end up in a 2.000 Euro fine or one month in prison. The whole idea was started by a lobby of local shop-owners who wanted to get rid of those filthy punkers in the inner city and shopping streets in Graz because they were diminishing turnover.
What’s gonna be next?
many schools and kindergarten already claimed that they need such schutzzonen as well. even more, a school in Traiskirchen wants it since there are too many foreigners from the Asylheim there. so we have bad punks, bad junkies, and bad foreigners.
i demand a schutzzone around my place to prevent that politicans asking for my vote come there and annoy me.
iirc, on puls.tv, a streetworkers said they used to exchange needles, squirts and consulted junkies at resselpark .. where should they do this important job now?
@teemu probably at the Votivpark now. unless they get one of those security zones there as well.
besides the fact that this whole thing is ridiculous, i can’t wait for the first tech-u student who gets arrested because he’s resting in the park between lessons.
can i buy a revolution on ebay?
as soon as my time schedule allows some free time i am going there myself. i have a bet with a friend of mine: i say i can stand there longer than 10 minutes before getting the first warning. he thinks it wont even last longer than 2 minutes.
the price: one bottle of russian vodka for the winner.
in case you’re really evicted, pls report here. take someone along to take pics.
@daniela, if you can document this, you
alright.
problem is: everyone i asked to join me with the camera is like “omg nooo! police! ARGH! FEAR!” and i cant go there with the camera on my own, which would ruin the thought of being “just a normal visitor of this normal park”. as soon as i can drag someone along ill report. for sure.
daniela, if you need a photographer, i’m only 20 minutes away from the karlsplatz station, own a tiny tiny digital camera and a high-quality SLR, and i’m not afraid to use them. i could probably be there if you told me a couple of hours in advance, but i might sleep at odd hours, so better make that a day in advance. i won’t pout if you can find someone who has a camera that is both high-quality and digital at the same time (i might be able to bring one but i don’t know for sure), i’m volunteering just in case you don’t :-)
which one is better?
in swiss cities they put the exact opposite on form of “ghettos” that become bizarre tourist attractions and the junkies drop in the same way consuming anything else but pure heroin
who got the ransom?
jesus died for satan
@ Teemu
ill remind you of the bottle as soon as the experiement, or bet, is over. ;)
@ Nex
Philip and I will go there probably on monday. depends on my working schedule. and believe me, i am not scared to use that minolta of mine.
@ Luc
i doubt that jesus died for satan or vice versa. both are immortal, remember?
anyways, there has to be a better solution for the issues of the people there. something that helps them and not end up in a ridicilous political farce.
i’m sure that you could stand around for a whole hour and still exactly nothing would happen, but if you and philipp don’t mind, i’d still like to come; if only to proclaim “i told you so!” afterwards ;-) you can contact me via IM or SMS (the latter is for orf.at users only ;->)
ill drop you a line when we know the time and stuff.
“i told you so” thats something i hear on a daily base, so its nothing new. NYA NYA! ha.
“anyways, there has to be a better solution for the issues of the people there. something that helps them and not end up in a ridicilous political farce.”
come on this sounds pathetic.
the junkies biggest problem is that they do not want to be helped. there is no “better” solution as long as they are illegal entities dieing from stretched white. apart from that the junkies are not the point of the schutzzonendebatte but a severe violation of the baserights.
i wasnt talking about the junkies alone. remember, the school wanted the schutzzone. the parents of the kids, the school itself, and the kids have issues as well.
i doubt that all junkies like the drivel of self destruction, and i bet there are more out there that want to get rid off an addiction. i guess its not necessary to explain what an addiction is, right? pathetic or not, this schutzzone is nothing more than a political farce. got it?
“illegal entity” sounds like something that will be blasted to tiny bits in milliseconds as soon as a T-1000 comes around the corner. or a street judge, depending on your sci-fi preferences. _not_ a good term for a human who might do something slightly illegal from time to time, but actually isn’t illegal him-/herself in any way.
this isn’t quite clear; whose basic rights are violated and by whom or what?
daniela: go for it - just in case you get arrested - kossu is for sure a good trading good
@ teemu: i doubt they arrest me. somehow i doubt they even recognise i am there. but we will see.
actually this was an only-once-a-year comment where i wasn’t hung up on phraseology; the idea of _people_ *being* illegal struck me as somewhat fascist and disrespectful of human rights …
people being illegal is fascist, yes. that is what i want to say.
and as long as the problem is just re-routet while still illegal it can not be solved.
and by that the only solution is to legalize the whole story (an unkown dimension for our chicken hearted politicians, look at their faces). we (us, entities untertanen of a systeme merde) will consume drugs anyway anytime anywhere and a junkie can become 100 year old with clean and affordable heroine he could even work without all the hassle for money all day long. just take a look at thailand. legal or illegal (scheissegal)
verletzung der grundrechte sich an einem
i sometimes think we live in the matrix of the lies of capitalism vending power. it s not much different from neo s matrix, look at the average life and play the story
it is all about the cashflow. and the drug s cashflow is among of the most powerful . with legal drugs it would collapse entirely. guess who is interested?
“i sometimes think we live in the matrix of the lies of capitalism vending power.”
didnt think i would say that, but:
agreed.