Compassionate Society took away the pain

Re: “R.I.P., Vancouver Island Compassionate Society,” commentary, July 28.

This letter saying goodbye made me cry. I have MS and have been using cannabis for eight years. I have no desire to return to my days filled with severe pain, leg spasms and a whole list of symptoms that would just make me curl up and cry.

The magic began when my doctors prescribed VICS — I got my life back. I talked to the most caring, patient people I had ever met. I wasn’t crazy — I was just a patient who had many years of pain and being misunderstood. The world was a better place at last.

Now we face having to find somewhere else at a much higher cost that the majority of us cannot afford. A lot of the customers were low-income, homeless or just down on their luck. They will look elsewhere and some will end up using street opioids, which will just make that problem much worse.

There will be no more compassion, empathy or caring in a system that just calls us drug abusers.

We are not — we live a life of pain and searching for an affordable and effective way to control it.

We can’t go to our doctors (if we have one) to be prescribed an effective painkiller because of the overdose crisis, so we are tossed into the system to find our own cure. I call that a revolving door.

Personally I will miss the low cost, the ever-caring staff and even the little dog that met us at the door.

The staff that worked there are heroes to me and many other people who are in constant pain. We are not complainers — we just need help that we can afford and is effective.

The loss of VICS is a loss to Victoria and I hate to say goodbye.

You are heroes and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Lynn Larsen Victoria