That other health care crisis that is killing people in British Columbia is not going away.
Andrea Woo of the the Globe and Mail, who has done much great work on this subject explains two of the reasons why:
The point being, fentanyl on its own is really, really bad.
But when it is mixed with benzodiazepines it is even worse.
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If you want more information and context on safe supply, from the folks who need it most, the 'Crackdown' Podcast and Website are good places to go...You may not agree with them entirely, but you will most certainly come to realize the human scope of the epidemic.
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1 comment:
Thank you for providing a public service with this article.
The rate of deaths by drugs is just as bad as COVID, however, in my opinion people tend to believe they're all druggies and they're just getting what they deserve. In the case of COVID, well its their grandparents, their elderly relatives or their friends, etc. The result in both cases is death and one has been very preventable for a very long time. its just governments and society in general weren't interested.
We didn't have decent enough rehab for more people. 28 days instead of 3 months min. with a year's follow up. We didn't have enough spaces for those who wanted it at one particular time. We didn't provide adequate housing and then the City of Vancouver and others decided well let them all camp together and ensure they have a supply of bad drugs.
If we as a society are not going to deal with the drug deaths then at least hand out the drugs at the local pharmacies so they can stay alive. Not one of those drug addicts or accidental deaths were people who wanted to live this way or die. They were all born looking cute and adorable with potential to grow up and have decent lives. Some where along the way things fell apart. We as a society stood by and let it happen.
The thing which bothers me the most is the lack of action on the part of the RCMP in this province. Its like the H.A. and other gangs just get a free pass on the whole thing. It reminds me of the casino money laundering, but then it does go hand in hand.
I can remember a time when heroin was pretty clean. People might die from an over dose but not because the heroin was tainted. Now there isn't any clean heroin left in the province and ditto for other hard drugs and soft drugs for that matter. My take on it is, back in the day the police decided to target the H.A. for their drug business. the H.A. decided to "franchise" it and hence the fight for market share or gang war fare and cutting the drugs with cheaper drugs to enhance profits. Its just good old capitalism, just at another level. So in my opinion the corporate system the H.A. hAd for their business did not keep up standards for products or human resource issues.
When the profits from the drug trade is then laundered through government regulated casinos you really have a problem. There was no incentive, in my opinion, for the B.C. Lieberals to do anything because too many people were making too much money.
government is responsible because they did not inspect the containers coming into our port closely enough. Corporations in the U.S.A. screamed when they wanted to inspect all containers coming in through L.A. government didn't move forward. I expect something similar happened in Canada.
It would be interesting to take every drug addict in this province and put them in a first class facility and sit back and watch what happens. (I know that is a violation of rights so its not going to happen) I expect that there would be huge financial ramifications in places "nice" people didn't expect to see them.
They will vaccinate against COVID but unfortunately no one is really going to care about people dying from tainted drugs even though in some areas the greatest number of those dying are middle aged men who have jobs and live in the suburbs. the drugs they took were tainted and no one was around when they took them for recreation. People just don't understand what it feels like to see a young person full of life one week and 3 weeks later go to their funeral because they went to a concert and bought some drugs they thought would not be a problem.
At least the group you have mentioned is trying to do something about it. thank you for providing this information.
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