A commentary by two Courtenay residents.
Sadly, we are witnessing the horrors of wars in Ukraine, Russia, Palestine and Israel, with more than 30,000 innocent civilians losing their lives to war.
Another war is occurring right now in Canada, with more than 42,000 innocent civilians having lost their lives in the past six years due to policies that create a war on drug users.
In Canada, billions of tax dollars have funded a war against Canadians through the prohibition of drugs. Decades of evidence shows the prohibition of drugs to be a complete failure, just as the prohibition of alcohol was.
The reality is that the prohibition of drugs ensures organized crime is the sole provider of toxic drugs. What other policy directly supports organized crime?
Federal MPs and provincial MLAs are failing in their responsibility to say and do all that they can to stop these preventable deaths from the toxic supply of drugs in our country.
These failing politicians will speak to harm reduction, decriminalization, safe supply and recovery, yet none of these measures address or remove the source of toxic drugs and subsequent deaths.
What is criminal is not someone ingesting a substance but politicians that do not acknowledge that the source of toxicity needs to be addressed to stop people from dying; they are, at best, trying to minimize the deaths of a very small percentage of chronic users without acknowledging that all people need to be safe.
Politicians calling for recovery as the principal way to stop deaths are choosing not to acknowledge the reality that youth, recreational users and many of the chronic users will not be saved by recovery beds.
It’s like these people don’t exist.
To our elected MPs and MLAs, should you lose a son, daughter or spouse to the toxic supply of drugs, could you visit their gravesite and tell them that you miss them so badly but it’s for the best that you support the prohibition of drugs and organized crime as the sole provider of toxic drugs?
Our son Ryan, 26, and the vast majority of the 42,000 who have lost lives to the toxic supply of drugs, would be alive today if their substance was legalized, regulated and controlled, like we do for alcohol users.
Once again our failing pathetic federal and provincial parties are proving all lives do not matter, as more than 20 people die a preventable death every single day in Canada.
