‘Problem’ and ‘crisis’ are not the same thing

Re: “Thirteen deaths in one day linked to drugs,” Dec. 18. Premier Christy Clark claims “the province will stem the [overdose] crisis given the resources and imagination that it’s devoting to the problem,” but doesn’t know when she will see results.

There’s a reason for that: Clark doesn’t understand that the “problem” and the “crisis” are not the same thing.

Fixing the problem requires a proactive, imaginative approach to dealing with the question of why illicit and licit drug addiction is growing, and why it has become so ubiquitous. That’s not the same as stemming the crisis by being reactive and adding more resources.

While there is no doubt that enough detox beds, enough naloxone, enough police on the ground, better border controls and well-defined trade treaties would help stem the crisis, none of those measures will address the problem.

Aside from the profit motive, the problem has two major causes: • The lack of appropriately educated social-service providers. The government and taxpayers aren’t interested in spending money, proactively, that would help the marginalized segment of society that economic policies and political choices have kicked to the side of the road; or on the ever-growing number of soon-to-be marginalized addicts coming into the system. • The pressure from Big Pharma to sell more opioids. The over-prescription of opioid painkillers moves patients through the system quickly. The faster patients move through the system, the more drugs can be sold.

I hope Clark finds the imagination she is looking for and that it understands the problem. Ken Dwernychuk Saanich