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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: [OT] BC wants the feds to let him re-criminalize public drug
 use but Trudeau is dragging his heels
Date: Wed, 1 May 2024 08:30:06 -0400
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On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:15:54 -0700
The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:12:52 -0400, Rhino
> <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
> 
> >What's worse, is that despite the very evident harm the
> >de-criminalization experiment has done in BC, Trudeau and his allies
> >in Ontario (all but one Toronto riding is Liberal) want to bring
> >de-criminalization to Toronto!
> >
> >Here's the evidence of the harm that is being done:
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RaWzJUeT0o [1 hr, 23 minutes]
> >
> >Here's a discussion with Brian Lilley - one of the few moderate
> >journalists in this country that works at a major outlet - about the
> >desire of "progressives" to de-criminalize drug use in Ontario:
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43apKv4of7Y [16 minutes]
> >
> >If you consider the great harm that has already been done in BC with
> >this experiment - harm so severe that the NDP (socialist) government
> >which embraced it has backed away quite dramatically - the idea of
> >extended the experiment to Toronto is just completely nuts. Even
> >Oregon, which de-criminalized drug use (but not on an experimental
> >basis!) has backed away from that and wants to re-criminalize it.   
> 
> As you know I live in BC (aka British Columbia - Canada's westernmost
> province and located immediately north of WA state and E of Alaska)
> 
> To say this story has been a massive news story in BC is an
> understatement as some northern hospitals have been 'invaded' by drug
> using patients and in a few cases dealers "servicing" their customers.
> 
> Much of it is fentanyl or drugs with fentanyl as a component and it is
> being injected or smoked. Injection of course only affects the user
> though smoking it creates hazards towards anybody encountering it -
> and the worst cases are in these hospitals where the drugs have
> entered either as personal effects or dealers coming as "visitors" for
> their "regular customers"
> 
> There have been at least 3 cases where medical staff have taken days
> off to recover from second-hand fentanyl smoke. 

They're lucky they didn't die! Apparently, first responders coming
across drug overdoses have to be VERY careful to avoid inhaling even a
tiny bit of fentanyl as they handle the junkie, whether treating them or
getting them into a body bag. 

> It initially didn't
> get much attention since the affected hospitals were in northern BC
> far from Vancouver (which has a little over half the provincial
> population - and is where I live) but it's sure had a lot since. They
> got warrants to inspect the personal affects of these patients and
> found not only drugs (e.g. non-medicinal drugs) and weapons (mostly
> knives)
> 
> Coupled with this has been a Vancouver report suggesting that
> something like 50-55% of "safe supply" heroin (e.g. drugs issued to
> registered addicts - the idea being to avoid these people overdosing
> on fentanyl laced heroin) being diverted "to the street" - which of
> course tends to produce more addicts and on it goes...
> 
> Since it is an election year provincially, the provincial government
> is particularly sensitive to what are seen as "unpleasant surprises".
> 
I didn't realize you had an election this year. That explains why Eby,
who seems relentlessly "progressive", is asking for the experiment to be
watered down. But I'm damned if it makes any
sense for the rest of the country to participate in the experiment
since it has proven so disastrous for BC. Any other federal politician
facing a very difficult election, would have the sense to realize the
experiment had failed and that it was just a VERY bad idea to
decriminalize drug use anywhere else but Trudeau has no sense. The
ideologues who insist that decriminalization is going to make things
better seem to still be driving the policies in Toronto. Maybe Trudeau
thinks decriminalization will give him a boost with voters the way that
legalization of weed apparently did.

> I appreciate I may have used "Canadianisms" that few besides Rhino
> will understand but it's a fairly brutal situation where most of the
> fentanyl precursors are coming from China to Mexico where they are
> being made into fentanyl - which is about 100x as powerful as heroin
> and has caused 1500-5000 deaths a year in BC for most of the last 10
> years - people were saying in 2020-2021 that "COVID is BC's second
> plague" since fentanyl was killing more people here than COVID was
> even at the peak.

I don't know if you've watched the Vancouver is Dying video that I've
cited here but the most concerning part of it is that people are
getting free drugs like dilaudid to help wean them off their habits,
then turning around and selling them to kids in middle schools and even
elementary schools so that they can use the money to get stronger
drugs, especially fentanyl. These children are soon finding
dialaudid insufficient and moving on to hard drugs themselves. In what
universe is addicting children a positive outcome of a policy?

-- 
Rhino