Re: [OT] BC wants the feds to let him re-criminalize public drug use but Trudeau is dragging his heels

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