Numbers show SCS is creating more issues
By Letter to the Editor on February 7, 2020.
We recently heard a report by Dr. Em Pijl, paid for by the City of Lethbridge and presented before council, that supported the concerns voiced by citizens regarding their livelihoods in business being threatened, the quality of life in their neighbourhoods, the concerns of increased crime as well as health risks to the public from needles, fecal matter, urine, etc., and is one very good reason to shut down this site now!
This site has had a major impact on Lethbridge and now is following along the same negative path as Vancouver DTES since it opened with increases in all areas: more addicts, more homeless, more crime and more fatal overdoses!
People are dying not just from the overdoses, but from diseases related to homelessness, suicide due to the helplessness and even related violence. People will die, but we choose to follow the same failing model Vancouver uses, beginning in 2003, and fatal ODs, homelessness, crime, number of addicts, etc., all continue to rise! At what point will they realize that their safe injection ideas are a failure? When will Lethbridge realize it?
Treatment is the only answer, effective treatment! The best programs in the U.S. force addicts into treatment programs, and it works! They have low failure rates!
In a recent Letter to the Editor, a person who volunteered at the SCS for several weeks stated the numbers using the supervised consumption services have ballooned to 1,532, three times what the numbers were when they opened.
If it is soooo successful, why have the numbers exploded?
It is spiritually and morally wrong to enable these addicts to slowly destroy their young minds and bodies, supplying all of their paraphernalia while they need to commit crimes to pay for their addictions.
I urge you all to study the Vancouver DTES and B.C. addictions and homelessness issues that have spread from Vancouver to the rest of the province, and read the report from Dr. Pijl. (https://agendas.lethbridge.ca/AgendaOnline/Documents/ViewDocument/Community_Issues_Committee_2605_Agenda_Packet_1_20_2020_1_30_00_PM.pdf?meetingId=2605&documentType=AgendaPacket&itemId=0&publishId=0&isSection=false)
More people will die with this open than there will be if it is closed and they are placed into treatment. This site, in my mind, is increasing the number of addicts in the community and if you think there were issues last year, with this dramatic increase in SCS users, next summer, we will be overrun by addicts! Zero doubt!
Barry Ewing
Lethbridge
13-12
Spot on, Barry. But I don’t believe for a minute that our esteemed leaders will ever think of closing it, given the liability issues associated with doing that.
Perhaps a better approach would be for a great lawyer to step forward, and arrange a huge class-action lawsuit against the SCS, Bourque, the Mayor, the board members, and anyone else who is involved in supporting the SCS. Surely there is enough evidence to show public harm here.
Hit them where it hurts the most!
BANG ON Barry! But in my travels I have learned that up-to 92% of users are aboriginal. If that is indeed the case then as far as I am concerned the answer is obvious! Move it on to the reserve where it belongs and is closer and more convenient for the users. Problems on all fronts solved!
Barry is only relating what is now known and have been known all along! The SCS is akin to a “cancer” and if the cancer is not irradiated, it will eventually, without distinction, kill the community it has been hosted in. What concerns me is how the Mayor and most Council along with SCS themselves are tooting the horn that this SCS is a “good thing” in harm reduction! Really???? Another concern I have is why, WHY, when Dr. Em Pijl has requested (at least three times) for police statistics regarding issues in the SCS area, she has not been provided this information. Is this for one moment “transparent” and honest for the Police to not disclose this information, particularly since her research is based on factual and current data? Will the Mayor finally step up to the plate, and at least get this missing core information released|?
Imagine this: Lethbridge experiences a terrible crisis – say a destructive tornado. Many businesses are closed and many people lose their homes. Hundreds are put up in a hockey arena. Soon, there is laundry hanging everywhere and clusters cooking over burning barrels; ‘an eyesore,’ many of the neighbours say. The unemployed are hanging around the nearby streets. Theft and vandalism become more common. People are generally sympathetic, but are not happy with the slow progress dealing with the problem. The provincial and federal governments are reluctant to direct money to Lethbridge (as they are too busy giving it to their friends, the managerial elite running multinational corporations).
Along comes a group of citizens who want it all to end. They want the arena torn down. They don’t know what to do with the people living there, but hope they will just get a home, a haircut, and a real job. The same group are absent when the question of lodging is raised. ‘Not in my home,’ they say, ‘We’re not paying for it,’ they moan.
You finish the story. Does this group show some leadership? Do they step up and help raise money for homes for the displaced?
Fescue just compared the outcome of a natural disaster with enabling an addict to continuously harm themselves and innocent people. I don’t even…
Seth Anthony trots in on his high moral horse. I don’t even …
Can’t refute, so insult. Well done Fescue!
High moral horse? Please explain. I can’t wait.
Couldn’t figure it out yourself? lol!
Apples and oranges! Fescue
Fescue, once again you hide behind a mask for your identity……..Let’s call you Chris…. At any rate, your imagination has run wild (again)………what is in that coffee?
What’s that in your Ensure?
What a thoroughly useless comparison?Still walking the streets and feeling safe at night Fescue
@ fESCUE . . .You just do not get it . . . First, I am not planning on doing anything such as being Mayor . . . or any leadership role . . . Poor leadership is how we got into this mess!
We stand for taking back our streets instead allowing them to be over-run by addicts and FN screaming their war cries on the streets, high on drugs ( I have video). Leadership didn’t listen to our concerns . . .
This is about bringing some relief to the businesses that have suffered major losses in the downtown, even though it is too late for those that have fallen. The leadership,as per provincial rules of governance as I understand it are to make decisions for the community as a whole, not a small group of a few hundred that have cost the city millions, not to mention wreaking havoc through-out the city.
It is not about being Mr. Photo-op in the news, or look at me, see what I am doing . . . it is about the city, the people, their neighbourhoods and the children!
All this seems to be missed . . . the city and the people have paid a dear price while leadership attacked those who stood up to help us, who heard our pleas. For those of us that have stood up, who have been impacted, we have had losses, we have been intimidated, threatened, and have seen little support from our great leaders. Open attacks in the media from them!
We are not here for glory, for money, or to win popularity contests . . . WE ARE HERE FOR THE CITY!! COMMITTED!!
And now there was a homicide. Dennis Brenner was spot on with his statement that organized crime will be starting turf wars. Secondly, what about the hipocratic and allowing and condoning humans to inject poison into their bodies?
https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2020/02/11/police-issue-canada-wide-warrant-in-relation-to-westside-shooting/
Year 3 I pointed out, is the year the big boys start musceling in. I quote
” Information obtained by investigators alleges a verbal dispute surrounding the ilicit drug trade occurred between the victim and the accused, resulting in the victim being fatally shot.”
I also quote, the most important part, which most will gloss over and NOT understand the implications
Dhiblawe has also been charged with second-degree murder in connection with a homicide in Edmonton on February 8, 2020, and is wanted by Edmonton Police Service on a Canada-wide warrant.
So a guy from Toronto goes to Edmonton and kills someone, then comes to Lethbridge and kills some one else?
The Lethbridge person was in a dispute over drugs? Hmmmm maybe his position in the drug trade? Maybe his boss in Edmonton thought he had a position too?
And so, ladies and gents, it begins!