Counter questions regarding SCS issue

By Letter to the Editor on February 25, 2020.

This is a response to the letter “Some facts, questions about the SCS,” Feb. 14 Herald.

Let’s deal with business expansion: Did you find how many were going to “expand” downtown because that’s the businesses that are being destroyed by this stupidity?

Let’s deal with the 440 unique clients: First, they are not clients, they are drug addicts. The reason Bourque and the SCS staff call them clients is, like any client, they pay their paycheque and are the source of all the money that SCS earns for providing services; that is what a “client” is. Second, you suggest 440 unique clients, yet Lethbridge, according to Bourque/Manning and Mayor Spearman, had 1,300 addicts as of October 2019 (Spearman quote). So if we have 1,300 addicts and 440 (650 visits, some visit more than once a day) are using the SCS, how many of those visits are addicts visiting the SCS for one reason and one reason only, and that is to pick up a fresh supply of needles for the 900 or so not using the SCS?

You ask what would happen to the 440 if the SCS shut down? Simple answer, really; they would use where the other 900 are using, which is in Lethbridge’s 90 drug houses (another Spearman quote). So the impact on Lethbridge would be there would be four more people visiting each of the 90 drug houses that were set up by this stupidity.

Lastly, once the drug clubhouse is shut down Lethbridge will demand someone in the judicial system take this more seriously than they are; catch and release does not work! Lethbridge will also demand the mayor not appoint a soft-on-crime police chief.

Dennis Bremner

Lethbridge