Pubdate: Fri, 06 Jan 2017
Source: Daily Courier, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 The Okanagan Valley Group of Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/531
Author: Jorgen Hansen

WHERE ARE WE NOW WITH FENTANYL CRISIS?

Editor: Where does Joe the Taxpayer stand now that we have placed many 
more tax dollars to the cause of drug addicts and their overdoses?

We save some drug addicts by giving them the antidote and some are now
left brain damaged. What is Joe Taxpayer supposed to do with these new
addicts that cannot function at all? Do we supply them with new
hospital beds to sustain them with the basics?

Trying to understand the use of fentanyl: a drug dealer is a
businessman, so he wants to optimize his profit and to do that he
purchases some cheap fentanyl to add to the original product to insure
the end user gets the hit that he expects.

Border enforcement has not been able to prevent fentanyl from entering
the country, so we can ignore that as a solution to the fentanyl
problem. Cocaine and heroin will also come into our country as long as
there is money to be made.

Has any bright person in our government figured out what the cost of
having drug addicts in our system - i.e. the police, border agents,
emergency departments, hospitals, doctors, nurses, councillors, rehab,
shoot-up stations, welfare usage (broken families etc.)?

The whole system seems to be a political potato - the government steps
in with a few million to see if there is a response in the polls but
the solution does not appear. Well, let us add a few more millions and
see if the polls change - there is a spring election coming up.

I had a long talk with my GP during my annual checkup. He says that it
is much cheaper to give the addicts three free needles per day through
our drug stores (with proper ID for control). We have to admit that a
drug addict does not want to miss his next fix until he admits to
himself that rehab might work for him. It is not our place to attempt
to cure them or to keep them alive if they overdose.

Imagine what the drug dealers would think if the addicts could obtain
"free" drugs just by registering with the government?

We must look for a solution to the importation of the drugs, not chase
after the dog's tail all the time and never catching it. Our drug
addicts are Canadians and deserve the correct type of help if they
want it. Rehab should be available before shoot-up galleries are
installed. Free drugs are the cheaper solution, especially since we
know that as soon as an over-doser leaves the hospital he will shoot
up again as soon as he can.

Please ask yourself: what type of solution will work? Would it be more
humane to allow drug users to die from their over consumption of
unknown drugs or allow them to become vegetables that Joe Taxpayer
will house in hospitals? It is a form of suicide if you will inject
something that you are not sure of the content.

Imagine house parties where the joy is to shoot up as statistics tell
us 70 per cent of the overdoses occur. Is your life really that boring
that you want to experiment with poison in your veins?

Jorgen Hansen, Kelowna
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MAP posted-by: Matt