Wasting more money won’t solve the city drug crisis
By Lethbridge Herald on May 20, 2023.
Editor:
Re: Drug Addictions panel seeking solutions at SACPA session, Lethbridge Herald May 17th.
At this forum we heard from numerous people connected in various ways to what many in this community judge to be a crisis.
Evidence of this is hard to deny. A month ago Sgt Ryan Darroch of LPS, confirmed this stating “we still have the highest crime index in the country, based on our population.”
In another article same day -“ We want to hear your stories on crime in the city” Our Herald appealed for citizens “to be heard.”
“We want to hear your stories, we want to hear your frustrations, your anger, your fears” “we can’t let criminals take over our communities.”
Alvin Mills, a hero in this matter in the minds of many, spoke at this forum of successes at “his Indigenous recovery camps outside of Lethbridge” later stating that “despite the success of various programs” “…the opioid crisis is at the worst it’s ever been.”
This city has been ravaged like few have relative to population . The inner core is nearly uninhabitable – at the least it’s not a safe, or smart place to be – crime stats Sgt Darroch speaks of serve as evidence.
This SACPA event saw a call-out for more “funding and support” – a call for we citizens to pony up more millions for more housing.
Robin James of the Lethbridge Housing Authority, despite all the money that’s been thrown around accommodating the addicted, asks once more that taxpayers fund more “responsible housing focused on current gaps in our housing continuum.”
I presume it’s James’ job to keep “asking” for more and more housing, despite evidence abounding that “more housing” will never solve, or even begin to solve the crisis, much of it which began in the womb. There’s’ been tens of billions of dollars spent on housing, free drugs, clothes, crisis consulting, and what have you, and the crisis as Mills states is “….the worst it’s ever been.”
My wife and I moved to Lethbridge in 2013.
We chose Lethbridge for many reasons – an excellent road system, a relatively crime free city (then), a beautiful place with more green spaces than anywhere we’ve been, great people, and a wonderful historic downtown whose merchants we supported regularly and so on.
That downtown I knew is gone!
Chelsey DeGroot, program manager for a drug treatment court spoke.
DeGroot was employed by taxpayers at the former drug user, abuser clubhouse, know as the supervised consumption site, the SCS, claiming it a success “despite popular opinion.”
“Did it ruin our community? No it didn’t.”
Shannon Phillips, incumbent MLA for Lethbridge West, would agree with DeGroot. Phillips stood beaming on the opening of the SCS declaring that facility, (costing taxpayers of this province tens of millions) was a historic day for Lethbridge.
All these years later I’m hopeful that by the end of the month of May, there’s another “historic day for Lethbridge,” and we’re rid of the architects of a history most taxpayers want no part of.
Then (maybe) citizens can once again enjoy their coffee and chats at Penny without stepping in, or being part of something objectionable, they didn’t want to bring home.
A.W. Shier
Lethbridge
23-22
Could not agree more. Great letter. FORCED confinement/rehab is the only possible solution.
Right on the mark. So sad for Lethbridge’s downtown. Elect Phillips again, get another SCS……you can be sure that’s high on her agenda.
yes – we need to be sure to spend every cent instead propping up that great success of over many decades, the war on drugs. now, there is money not wasted, right? the bonus of that bogus war is that human rights have routinely been infringed upon, including crimes against humanity in how “suspects” have been treated and “punished.” but of course, stupid knows not much other than being stupid.
i was downtown once, and it was a war zone. there was some litter that was not in a garbage bin. i called 9-11 immediately, but was then referred to the city help line, and was then referred to waste collections. in between, there were many questions about the type of garbage – was it recyclable, organic compost, or best for the dump. was very unsettling…i needed a drink. i stealthily sprinted and rolled from galt gardens tree to tree until i was able to run across one of those ungodly rainbow-coloured cross walks that almost blinded my eyes, let alone my sense of godliness and world order. crazy hoodlums on rented electric scooters rocketed by every direction…high speed artillery that somehow god helped me to avoid. those damned rockets were coloured orange, just like the evil ndp that almost ruined alberta in just 4 years, and ruined all businesses downtown in lethbridge, as they supported that scs drug clubhouse.
by a miracle, finally, i made it to a safe camp, the patio of the owl, safe behind the barricade of its impenetrable patio wall. alas, the beer was cold, and after two large, i felt i was able to chart a safe path for home. my primary disappointment was that i did not see the notorious kingpin gang leader herself, ms shannon phillips, selling pharm drugs from the heavily armed scs clubhouse. i know based upon the good citizen concerns so often expressed in this forum that she does support drug addicts doing drugs, but obviously, she is at least as stealth as pablo escobar, and maybe, she is the head of a chapter of hells angels. anyway, do not go downtown…it is a war zone!
Your comment “i was downtown once’ says it all. Obviously you haven’t looked at a crime map from CityProtect either… (and those are the ones where people have actually called in or seen by police or the Watch).
Biff lives downtown volunteered for SCS and LOPS. He is an addict and I think the drugs have killed some parts of his brain.
Why does the Watch offer the ‘safe walk’ program downtown if it is that safe? Some don’t get it and never will!
The “Portland/San Francisco plan” is not a good plan. Drawing traffickers into our centre is not good for our citizens.
https://www.narconon.org/blog/new-report-suggests-safe-injection-sites-actually-increase-crime.html
Thank you Mr. Shier for taking the time to get engaged, listen to facts and discern disinformation and misinformation from fact. You have a very good idea what is going on in this city.
Sadly, if the NDP gets in, we will our city fall into the abyss since they will open another SCS and might even put some OPS sites across the city.
The mobile OPS site at the shelter is not that active, since many do drugs where ever the want, and when asked to move along away from your business or resident, refuse and/or blow their drug smoke in you face.
We have a large force that works to clean up after the addicts/homeless which the city taxpayer pays for and we have over $14 million of city revenues/property taxes paying for the impacts of this crisis annually, not to mention all the federal and provincial tax dollars that come to this city due to the crisis, They are all our monies, from our tax dollars paid, coming out of our pockets.
The city has taken steps to prevent the dangerous and illegal encampments which grow last year in our city, but that is not all that is needed.
We need the new act the UCP will implement for involuntary care and we need the new 700 treatment beds they will implement.
Effective treatment is how we are going to end this and save lives! The NDP has openly stated they are firm supports of harm reduction, even though it has failed miserably in BC, after it was started in 2003, with their first safe injection site. After 20 years, there should have been seen success, but instead fatal overdoses, numbers of addicts/homless/crime all rose.
The NDP has done nothing to listen to those of concerned with the crisis and we had to go to an MLA who was not ours to get results.
If BC would have put half of what they poor into all the non-profits to enable addicts in their addictions into effective treatment programs, they would have seen dramatic results, positive changes with more lives saved and families healed.
The NDP wants to use all the mistakes BC continues to make that do not work and the biggest example they do not work is right next door in BC.
Vancouver DTES, or the greater DTES in only 20,000 people, but for years they pump over $360 million in social supports and housing programs run by non-profits, that enable the addict, only about $110 million of that is from donations and the rest if from various levels of government. 20,000 people get $360,000 per year to enable them in their addictions.
Effective treatment is the answer! Even donations come from the taxpayers, and that money is diverted from cancer societies/reseearch, heart and stroke foundations, diabetes research and societies, etc., etc.
Billions of taxpayer dollars are blown across Canada in programs that enable the addicts, not even a bandaid to the crisis, while people die from people who fail to see those actions do not save lives!