Friday, November 11, 2022

We Are All Frances McDormand Now.



There is a scene from that ode to the 1970's, 'Almost Famous' where Frances McDormand, playing young William's Mom shouts, 'Don't Do Drugs!' to comic effect.

Why comic?

Well, back then recreational drug use really was not a super big deal.

How do I know this?

Because, while I was no young William/Cameron Crowe, I too was a kid coming of age in the 1970's.

Of course, that would all gradually change as the kids and the idols of that age got older and, for some of them at least, excess and addiction gradually took hold.

The point is, though, that none of my friends went to a party on a Saturday night took something that somebody gave them in the heat/fun of the moment, and keeled over dead.

That is not the case now. 

And it's not just the fentanyl.

The following is from a recent piece in The Tyee by Moira Wyton:

...Data released today (Nov 7th) by the BC Coroners Service shows the toll of an increasingly contaminated drug supply that makes it nearly impossible for anyone to know how much and what they are taking.

At least 81 per cent of samples contained fentanyl, an opioid up to 100 times as potent as heroin, which began to take hold in B.C.’s criminalized drug supply in 2015. Extreme fentanyl concentrations have contributed to 16 per cent of deaths in the last year, compared to 8 per cent pre-March 2020.

Fentanyl’s even more potent analogue, carfentanil, has contributed to 79 deaths this year, and 190 the year before.

More and more benzodiazepines, a class of sedatives that don’t respond to naloxone, are present in the drug supply, making poisonings more likely to be fatal and more difficult to reverse when combined with opioids. Since July, the benzo analogue etizolam has been found in 38 per cent of samples, and contributed to as many as 55 per cent of deaths in some months.

While the drug supply and resources vary across the province, the crisis continues to affect every community in B.C...


Ms. Wynton's piece is mostly focussed on the need for a safe supply for the folks that are in the throes of addiction which is something I very much agree with.

However, in addition, me I'm planning to make like Frances McDormand every chance I get when it comes to my own kids and all the kids I work with that like to go out and have fun with their friends on a Saturday night.

OK?



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3 comments:

Grant G said...

Hello Mr. K....

https://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2022/11/reading-roomgreen-democratic-shoots.html

Nailed it again

https://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2022/11/dont-believe-pollsthe-fascist-are-going.html

Eyes Wide Open(ears too)

Cheers

e.a.f. said...

The m.j. market was fine in the late 1960. No one worried there was anything "extra" in it. Just toke and be happy. Now, not so much. Unless I grew it myself or it came from a "regular" store, would not use it. Would not accept anything from anyone else. its too dangerous. You're right, when it comes to our kids or other's kids. They can die and I know of one who did.

Once a clean, free supply of drugs is provided, housing could be provided at the same time. It also needs to be free and clean. Not dumps.

When dealers sell drugs they know can kill, which is pretty much all of it these days, they ought to be charged with attempted murder or murder, what ever one applies. It just is so strange, that if I put rat poison in your food and you are injured or die, I go to jail. If I put poison in your drugs, nothing happens. I get to continue in business.

Addiction ought not to be criminalized. Seizing drugs is a health precaution and perhaps its time for the police to start seizing it and having a health worker there to give the person a clean supply. It will get the dealers out of the encampments and save taxpayers a lot of money. People over dosing and dying is expensive and then its even more expensive if their brains no longer work and they're in care facilities.

NVG said...

If fentanyl 'dust' is left on the family kitchen counter and a three year old child touches the dust..... she's dead.