When asked what he thought of Western civilization, the story goes that Mahatma Gandhi replied: “I think it would be a good idea.”
With the fentanyl crisis becoming more prevalent on our streets and in our morgues, we fear Premier Christy Clark is petitioning the feds for nothing more than more of the same.
As long as we treat addiction as a criminal issue, addicts will be criminals.
While we might feel shielded by our geography, we’re witnessing a byproduct of the drug epidemic every time a window is smashed in Lynn Valley or a lock is jimmied on a Lonsdale-area street.
In 2012, fentanyl was responsible for five per cent of fatal overdoses in B.C. Today, it’s responsible for 60 per cent. And as terrifying as fentanyl is, it’s simply the drug of the moment. Other compounds, some even more toxic, show up on the streets, claim lives, and vanish.
Some measures Clark has pursued – such as restricting pill presses – are fine ideas, but they’re also a classic example of chasing a problem.
Vancouver’s Crosstown Clinic, which supplies heroin to addicts for whom every other measure has failed, has become the rarest thing: a success no one is willing to emulate.
The notion of legalizing heroin is, at the very least, worth examining.
More than a decade after drug decriminalization, Portugal now records three overdose deaths per million residents. B.C. is suffering 135 overdose deaths per million residents – and the year isn’t over.
We need something new, something just, and something humane. Our civilization depends on it.
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