Mayor takes needle debate to social media
Spearman and Blaine Hyggen exchange words on Facebook
The needle distribution program has sparked controversy in Lethbridge for months, dividing Lethbridge between supporting drug addicts from spreading serious diseases, and supporting the removal of needles for the protection of our children and community.
The argument has brought out public protests, social media campaigns and a never-ending argument that cannot seem to find the middle ground.
Late Thursday evening, the Facebook community was surprised by the comments made by Mayor Chris Spearman who wrote in response to a post that criticized him and others in the local government for their response towards the concerns in relation to the Supervised Consumption Siteand needle debris found in public spaces.
“Actually we do know what we are doing. The fools who want to close the SCS or restrict clean needle distribution would be putting the community at far greater risk.”
Councillor Blaine Hyggen was taken back by the comments and felt that it was a personal attack towards his personal concerns about the clean needle distribution initiative.
Hyggen responded to Spearman’s comments writing: “Thank you your Worship for calling your colleagues “fools”, thank you!”
Spearman later in the evening tweeted out a comment stating that he never called anyone specifically a fool and that it was an invitation to selfdeclaration.
He stands behind the facts and studies of medical officers that have provided council and the public information for why the program is important to not only users, but the city.
“People who don’t listen to competent medical advice, people who say they are better than the experts, that is a problem for us,” says Spearman. “The whole point of providing the July 9 opportunity was to bring in qualified people to talk about needle distribution and risk to the community. I keep hearing people say that they don’t believe the experts, well who are we going to believe if we don’t believe people that are qualified in this specific field.”
A public meeting was held on July 9 with presentations from the lead Provincial Medical Officer of Health for Harm Reduction, Dr. Nick Etches, and experts from Communicable Disease Control, Alberta Health Services, Ministers Opioid Emergency Response Commission and from addiction, prevention and treatment services.
Spearman was promoting the meeting as much as he could to help educate as many people on the importance of the program and to understand the opioid crisis better.
Hyggen took an alternative route in finding information through nonpartisan groups such as doctors who have medical evidence opposing the clean needle exchange.
“We have been told that it is very new and we don’t know how it works, and for medical to say how it works when we don’t even know if what we are doing is correct,” says Hyggen.
“I believe that I have been in discussion with non-partisan groups that have other medical evidence, such as doctors or other individuals that are not part of a government pushing something.”
The concern for spreading serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and various forms of Hepatitis throughout the city is on Spearman’s radar.
Remembering the HIV epidemic of the 1980’s and ’90s, he doesn’t want to see Lethbridge suffer more than it has in the past.
“What I was saying was that people have to learn from history,” says Spearman.
“We had a huge HIV crisis about 30 years ago, we had a huge blood-contamination crisis about 20 years ago, we have had those experiences and we don’t learn from those experiences and we continue to put the population at risk, we are fools.”
The spread of diseases would not be contained within the drug community and would spread quickly into all parts of the city, according to Alberta Health Services. The concern that Councillor Hyggen has is the lives being risked outside of the safe consumption site.
“I totally feel for the supervised consumption site because that is what it does,” says Hyggen. “If we give needles out to people, I am scared that we are going to lose lives because those people will go out and overdose somewhere that we won’t be able to administer naloxone, and you won’t be able to revive them because they aren’t in the site where we can monitor them.”
The argument over supporting the needle exchange program has been put on hold until Monday’s council meeting, where Hyggen will present a proposal for a bylaw to completely stop clean needles from leaving the site. Council will have to agree soon on what is more important, preventing the spread of life-threatening diseases, or protecting people from needle debris and unmonitored overdoses.