Right assessment but wrong reason
Dear Editor: Weeks ago a writer from Victoria correctly fingered the BC government as responsible for the escalating drug overdose deaths. Right assessment, wrong reason.
The heroin deaths do not result from insufficient support to addicts. Conversely, the deaths result, ultimately, from the ever increasing, if unintended, provincial endorsement of this self-destructive behaviour. The patronizing acceptance of this aberration with the milksop pronouncements by Interior Heath officials and Minister Terry Lake serve only to justify and legitimatize this suicidal behaviour.
Minister Lake’s worse than politically correct TV description of addicts, who inject themselves with now often lethal heroin doses, as persons with an “Opioid Use Disorder” was enough to make one puke on one’s shoes. Never mind that the B.C. government chooses to air TV spots that actually describe the intravenous injection of heroin as a “recreational” activity! That’s right folks, right up there with softball and bridge.
We are not going to end this frightful death spiral without frank and honest words. It seems that only the spate of recent letter writers know how to call a spade a spade and call for action rather than mollycoddling the perpetrators of this self-induced epidemic. It is time for tough love.
Outlining some of the “wrong reason” background is simply a recitation of the enabling past government actions. Heroin use and sale is illegal but lets distribute needles so they can get on with it. Better yet lets openly endorse the practice by providing shoot up facilities. Spend millions educating for prevention that is ignored and then spend millions more to medically ease the withdrawal discomfort, 5 per cent may even quit after rehab. Bad hit result? Off to the busy emergency ward by First
Responders. Fentanyl overdoses also occurring? Buy and distribute Naloxone kits and make all those otherwise idle First Responders train and administer the shots. Anybody know what the kits cost? Never mentioned.
And now another unbelievable proposal to encourage teen experimentation has been offered from another planet. Stock schools with naloxone kits! This kindness should help remove doubts about the risk. Go ahead kid, it’s OK.
Drug addiction is a life choice. The weak and the irresponsible will put pleasure ahead of purpose. But the time has come to insist that people take responsibility for their choices. Some advocates of ending this waste of life and public treasure seem a little harsh. While we do not favour exile to Baffin island or a hearing by the President of the Philippines, we expect some very plain instructive talk from all levels of government. Quit enabling and start preventing. And for God’s sake quit this “Opioid Use Disorder” nonsense and “recreational” term justification. John D. Thomas Okanagan Falls