There’s no hope of fixing drug crisis through harm reduction
By Lethbridge Herald on February 28, 2024.
Editor:
A friend called me today and informed me the federal Minister for Mental Health and addictions stated the “minister believes fear and stigma are driving criticism of the government’s decision to support prescribing pharmaceuticals to drug users to combat the country’s overdose crisis…”
After reading the article I realized there will be no hope of taking control of this drug crisis while the Liberals are in power, or any other government that supports harm reduction.
The feds have allowed B.C. to experiment with Canadian lives in that province, pushing experimental policies on the population which have failed, increasing fatal overdoses, not reducing them. How many more thousands of people must die before you admit your policies are a failure?
In 2003, due to overdoses from heroin, Vancouver introduced the first safe injection site on the continent, but after 20 years the evidence is clear that harm reduction practices only magnify the issues. Instead of admitting failure, they have blamed many other factors for why fatal overdoses, the numbers of addicts, mental health issues, crime and homelessness continue to increase. Instead of dramatically increasing mental health and addiction treatment, they pump billions of taxpayer and donor dollars into programs that encourage and enable addicts, and even their safe consumption sites now fail to offer any assistance for treatment. They have decriminalized small amounts of drugs, and hand out prescribed safe supply illegal drugs now made in B.C., such as cocaine, morphine, MDMA (ecstasy) and heroin, and the interview process for these exempted controlled drugs includes minors.
Minors do not need parental consent and parents will not be informed. This is how insane the federal government has become, allowing B.C. to progress into the abyss with these wild experiments that have taken thousands of lives, with no end in sight as fatal overdoses increase every year.
B.C. has over 32 safe consumption sites (SCS), and with all the radical programs they have been allowed to employ, they still have more fatal overdoses per capita than Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba.
Barry Ewing
Lethbridge
10-9
“Common Sense” Barry and hopefully somehow, someway and someday this will sink in! One minor correction Barry, it is not a “safe” consumption site(s) they are called, “supervised” consumption site(s)…….there is nothing “safe” about consuming lethal drugs and substances!
You are correct Harold! I witnessed fatal overdoses only steps from the safe (supervised) injection sites in Vancouver, after they left the sites. Twice I have read of fatal overdoses in sites in BC in the news, but cannot find any details now . . . none are registered with Health Canada . . . intetesting! Lethbridge SCS saw people leave and within blocks die, with one right in their parking lot, when it was in operation. There were many overdoses within one block of the SCS in Lethbridge, with even police administering Naloxone often.
You do not need to have a degree in addiction, sociology or any of the sciences to see that after 20 years of efforts in BC to make harm reduction work, it is a failure! The facts are all there for anyone with a simple mind to process.
Alberta is on the right track and Lethbridge has put in place policies and working on others that will end the carnage on our streets, the death and mourning of so many families and the millions spent because of the impacts from this crisis. It has created an annual billion dollar non-profit industry in BC which enables and encourages addicts.
Another fact-free harangue from the stormtroopers of Strict Father Morality and the Disciplinary State.
What you are expressing here, Barrie, are your values, not facts.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-strict-father-is-at-the-core-of-conservative-ideology-and-values/
Barry had a lot facts about the increase in drug abuse and death and correlation to government policies.
There is also a stong correlation between the sales of cheese graters and child poverty. Correlation is not causality.
Some correlations have an obvious cause and effect. Watching the spiral of drug abuse in certain places following steps to help ?Something that government implemented. Less access to drugs could potentially be detrimental to a druggies “needs”. That just seems to be a good thing tho. Too practical ,maybe?
I happen to know Barry’s professional role…believe me, he has “first hand, knowledge and experience” of which he speaks!
Barry is wrong. The increase in drug abuse and deaths is a worldwide phenomenon and takes place whether there are harm reduction policies locally or not. Lethbridge got rid of all of our harm reduction and we have huge increases in drug abuse and deaths.
Wow . . . how many aliases are you going to comment under? I am not wrong.
Did your read:
” . . .B.C. has over 32 safe consumption sites (SCS), and with all the radical programs they have been allowed to employ, they still have more fatal overdoses per capita than Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba. . . ”
The facts are there in plain sight for those who want to see them.
Alberta only has 7 SCS’s yet we have a lower per capita fatal overdose than BC! You can’t argue with that . . . it is there, the stats are there and Lethbridge has a mobile site for drug consumption at the shelter, and it has always been there since the SCS closed. There is pro-harm reduction non-profits funded and operating in this city, along with Sage Clan and I have seen vested Crazy Indian members with them as they walk around handing out Naloxone hits, syringes, ‘party packs’, etc.
Please don’t try to insult the many people who know you are the one spreading misinformation. I don’t know why I bother responding and will use this as my last response!
Effective mental health and addiction treatment programs, backed up by drug courts and law enforcement are the way back to reality and the best way to end the massive loss of life.
All you know how to do is attack others! You continue to attack me personally and there is a limit!
I happen to know Barry’s professional role…believe me, he has “first hand, knowledge and experience” of which he speaks!
Thanks Harold . . . I appreciate the support! Too many young lives have been lost in this crisis but many just have gotten so brainwashed on harm reduction pushed on them by so many factions, that they are blinded and fail to acknowledge harm reduction is a failure, even with all of the tangible proof in BC.
Communities across North America are moving to return to what worked in the past to keep fatal overdoses in small numbers. It wasn’t perfect but the numbers were much lower and now with drug courts, many will not have a criminal record to follow them for drug charges. Oregon is rescinding its legislation which decriminalized small amounts of drugs and banning open drug use in public areas, parks included.
I am happy that most of our leadership in this city are moving to end this carnage on our streets, because of hundreds of citizens, like youself Harold, who take the time to stand up for the addicts to get them treatment, not encourage them to continue their addiction, and stand up for our city, its citizens and businesses. Thank you!
We need to pray for our city and its leaders as well!!
I’m sorry that you were abused as a kid and became dependent on drugs. Sad that you can’t manage your issues! I would recommend to you that you truly do some research, as you use US conservatives to support your comments. There are very distinct differences in Canada! Assuming that you are to utilize such to help your remarks, think beforehand!
maybe the best way is to instead ensure harm appreciation, so as to solve our issues once and for all, right?
Genius, biff. Some good ol’ ‘harm enhancement’ would go a long way in eliminating the problem of addiction and vulnerability. And there are solid grounds to do so, since Barry has proven the relationship by simply stating that social care causes social need. “Spare the rod … ” say the Strict Fathers here.
aw, shucks! i am not so good with praise. but the good dose of negs to come will counter that and balance to my life will thus be restored.
speaking of using the rod…what say that instead of reviving those overdosing, we quick them along with a good old rod whacking to send them more surely to the great beyond (darn, not likely zealot heaven) so as to put us out of our misery?
I suppose it wouldn’t really be murder if one were to employ the Shepherd’s rod … ‘Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it!’
But to be fair, I think these people have more of a public guillotine in Galt Gardens in mind.
brilliant!
I’m confused why some people think providing health care to Canadians is wrong. That saving the lives of drug users is wrong and we should let them die instead. That we should continue to allow the distribution of poisons to our population. The argument that giving people health care doesn’t cure drug addictions is a fallacious one.
Treatment for drug addictions and addressing the root causes of addiction are different than harm prevention. Cutting one will not provide the other. Health care such as harm reduction can keep people alive. Those people need much improved programs addressing the drug crisis, mental illness, and poverty to progress to a better state. No people need an increased death rate while waiting for those programs.
i expect your humanity will fall on the deaf ears of those that most profess to accept and know jesus. you also hit a nail on the head, terming as poisons those synthetic drugs that are the core of of the very worst addictions today.
Those safe drugs are what got many addicted in the first place!
So you think it is humane watching the addicts who are under the umbrella of harm reduction, live on the streets, freezing in the winter and in some cases having parts amputated from freezing, sweltering in the summer in heat, selling their bodies to pay of their addiction and their ‘husband’s’ to old abusive men, getting beat up by their pimps/husband/gang members, while contracting diseases and have drugs deteriorate their bodies so bad that they walk like 90 year old seniors, IS HUMANE?
Sad that you believe this and sad that you and your other alias SophieR must put on such a media display, responding to each other. I would seek help for you idea of what is humane and multiple personality issues!
what safe drugs are you talking about? as for the est of your entry, i have never said any of what you suggest are my beliefs. what i do keep saying is that if real opium was offered up for free, we would have little to no crime related to addictions. the artificially high cost of artificial drugs is the greatest cause of street crime. moreover, if people were using opium, it would be easier to wean them off when they are ready to try. the synthetic poisons are far more invasive and addictive, and they are not quality controlled on the street, so we get more overdoses.
you note pimps and prostitution – i bet you support the criminalization of people choosing to make a business of sex? the law has no place telling consenting adults what they can and cannot do with one another. furthermore, it is such laws that most endanger a so-called “prostitute”. if legal, the parties involved would be safe, and not owned and abused by pimps. that is underscored in places where prostitution is not prohibited by crimes against humanity “laws”.
moreover, your collective stand against actual humanity, against what is actually feasible, is what condemns these people to the most hardcore addictions and crime. it is the criminality of drugs that has been the greatest killer, and is also a crime against humanity for that reason, and several others, which i have explained here numerous times. it is how we get nasty street dealers that have no qualms with poisoning and killing others in the name of making money…mind you, that standard had already long been established by big corp, right?however, you and ilk will not hear any of it because you want to control choices more than anything, and you need to control others so that they live by your preferences.
as for you and ilk in this forum, be it you, barry, or several others that are all wigged out over some paranoia delusion over aliases – i have no alias here, other than biff. get a life, man. seriously, you folks are getting freakier by the day.
I am not a man and you need help!
It is quite obvious that you cannot remember your previous posts!
Biff take the time to find reality and educate yourself.
Opium is not good for you and not better than then the drugs on the street. They are all toxic to the body!
Ever heard of the opium wars in the 1800’s and how opium destroyed the workforce in China and their society?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars
Perhaps, China has taken the current flooding of North America with opioids through Canada, US and Mexico from that playbook, to weaken us!
where to begin…opium has been around longer than humans. it has never been the cause of a downfall of a society, at least never recorded as such. ditto cannabis, coca leaf, and the host of all other of god’s gifts to those of the planet that have been able to benefit from its spiritual, medicinal, physical, and recreational aspects. they have only ever been an issue where idiot control freaks have tried to control others through the ridiculous criminalisation – and, in the case of the stupid opium wars, the perverse commercialistion/manipulation of peoples and societies. the usa’s and its puppet follower countries have perpetrated one of the greatest crimes against humanity with its silly but nasty war on drugs.
our issue today is with synthetic drugs, as it is with all things synthetic, and particularly those things synthetic that we ingest. plastics (yes, we ingest lots and lots of those, as do all the planet’s creatures thanks to our stupidity), food stuffs, poisonous chemicals, gmo crap…the more unnatural a product, and the more it is processed, the more the problem to the user and to the natural systems of the planet. our bodies, our systems, are not made to interact healthily with the unnatural. not likely anyone addicted to fruit to any serious extent, but we sure have a ton addicted to processed sugars – and to a significant adverse effect on health.
it is an expression – surely you are not so thick? as for previous posts, please, copy and paste even one where i have suggested we condemn others to misery.
again, you and ilk are about control, about forcing your preferences on to others. you cannot see past your own self righteous, self serving outlook. i suppose hanging out with an ugly stick for too long is what can make one ugly.
https://www.europeanproceedings.com/article/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.6