Get tough on drug suppliers

Dear editor: When is enough, enough? Twelve years ago my wife and I decided that we wanted to move to the Okanagan. After a lot of thought and visits we chose Penticton — what an absolutely wonderful place, sunshine, beaches, festivals, sports, and if you stayed all winter very bearable But what’s been happening?

More break-ins, both on the personal level as well as businesses, thefts are a regular occurrence, the police know who most of these criminals are — it’s mostly drug related, resulting in more and more fear among good, honest citizens.

I listen to the experts proclaiming what society is doing is wrong and we need to have more empathy, provide safer places for the drug addicts to shoot up, we need to enable these people so they won’t commit these crimes.

I’m sorry, I do not feel this way. When a person has a drug problem, we as a society need to do everything we can to help, but when is enough enough? I just read we have provided 13,000 naloxone kits in B.C. alone last year. What have the benefits been other than reviving someone so they can do it again? Meanwhile, there are seniors having to decide whether to turn on the heat or to eat, single moms and working poor who are struggling to pay rent and have to go to the food banks to survive in this incredible wealthy country. What are our leaders thinking? I don’t know the answer, but I do know what we are doing isn’t working. Unfortunately when the addiction, which I call the devil, finally takes you over, it is almost impossible to win — more than 1,100 deaths last year. How many first responders including paramedics, police, and firefighters have suffered emotional, and physical pain, divorces and worse as the result of dealing with this terrible curse?

Criminals having cases stayed, others being allowed to walk our streets and commit more crimes — how many people have to die before our leaders get the picture and start doing the right thing? The average street person selling drugs is not the problem, they are selling to feed a habit. It’s the upline that is the problem.

You may say I have no right to comment and what do I know. Here’s what I know. Our beautiful daughter, so talented and so loved, was held hostage by addiction. Thousands of dollars were spent on rehab, the loss of a wonderful husband, even her two dogs that she adored didn’t hold her back. On Oct. 26, our daughter was found in her bed dead due to an overdose which included fentanyl.

Let’s start to get tough and quit enabling and being soft on the drug suppliers.

Mitch Netterfield

Penticton