While some government stakeholders have finally admitted that safer supply harms communities in some ways, they’ve decided that this doesn’t matter that much.
The thing that keeps confounding me is the motivation to keep these programs going. What is the conspiracy that underlies this program? Are these people, out of the goodness of their hearts, so convinced that this will work that they're not willing to hear any naysayers? Or, more nefariously, are they in the pockets of the drug companies that produce the supply? Or is it something else entirely? If these people get so aggressive when told this isn't working, I really want to know why.
An excellent question and definitely in need of further investigation. My own take, which is completely observational and may not stand up to scrutiny, is that people find taking a moral stand to be very alluring, especially when the "other side" is represented by the police (which all right-thinking people know should be defunded) and the medical establishment (which all right-thinking people know are just a bunch of old, corrupt men). As to the question of how they managed to maintain such leverage in the halls of power, I think the advocates' campaign of over-the-top bullying and name-calling strikes genuine fear in the hearts of our elected representatives. The rabid base of left-leaning voters who support the provincial NDP and the federal Liberals have amassed power through shaming, or the threat of shaming. That is kryptonite to anyone looking to keep their seat in government. Sadly this is the state of discourse, and while I am stridently editorializing, I will boldly place all the blame on the Pandora's Box of social media. We were never meant to hear to the opinions of the masses without the guiding hand of disciplined journalism standards. The irony of me saying that here does not escape me.
I often wonder the same thing. "Progressives" get very aggressive when you disagree with them on this and other ideas. They claim that they are more compassionate that I am. I don't see what's not compassionate about discouraging people to not do drugs and, if they do get addicted, helping them quit their addition entirely. Sure, it's not easy, but it's way more compassionate to want to get them off drugs, in my opinion.
Also, another idea just in the back of my mind and not something I can fully articulate right now is the relationship between this and MAiD? Why are they trying to keep drug addicts alive and addicted at all costs yet encouraging non-addicted mentally ill people to kill themselves? I don't get it.
Not necessarily just progressives, but they do seem to suffer from the self-delusion of the saviour complex more frequently (or at least more obviously).
H.L. Mencken is not someone whose views I feel I should agree with, as in general his statements about nearly every group of people are so negative as to appear completeley cynical, but he said:
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve."
This was my reaction too. The story is admirably argued and persuasive, and Mr. Zivo appears to have done his research. What's missing, though, are the motivations of the activists and government officials involved: why are the former so immune to input on this issue, and why are the latter proving so unreceptive and indifferent, or perhaps fearful? If making life better for addicts and communities is the goal, why wouldn't everyone dedicated to achieving this goal want the most complete information possible, and welcome receiving it?
We are, alas, all too accustomed to seeing evidence ignored and truth denied by those who stand to profit in some way by such denial. What do the truth resisters stand to gain in this case? It's logically possible that someone could take perverse pleasure in ignoring evidence and attacking evidence-presenters, just for the heck of it; but this seems unlikely on a mass scale. It's more rational to suppose there are substantive reasons for the resistance Mr. Zivo and the medical experts who share his concerns have encountered--reasons which, if we knew them, would make this story more intelligible.
Progressive’s are always quick to claim the moral high ground and then form policy and programs around fuzzy concepts like “dignity”, “freedom to choose” or “lives matter”. COMPASSION, in capital letters.
If policy around mental health/illness, addictions or those “experiencing homelessness” is built on a foundation of fuzzy ideas of compassion rather than medical care based on research, activists who push these concepts have no room to manoeuvre. It’s just too bad that the default position is to demonize people who are faithfully trying to “do no harm” and make adjustments that are sorely needed.
Progressives have advocated for absolutely terrible policies in the past as well: they were at the vanguard of eugenics and residential schools, for example. However, rather than reflect on this history and embrace a bit humility, they instead tend to redefine those latter day progressives as somehow representing the right wing.
Policy failures that involve kids is particularly troubling and Canadians need to speak out. If some of the recipients of diverted safe supply are children, then WHOA! That’s a drug dealers dream, with low or no cost government dispensed opioids creating a new generation of drug addicts.
The fact that top Government officials and progressive “harm reduction” activists can’t see problems with that, or diss it off as collateral damage to achieve higher goals is impossible to understand.
I’m glad you mentioned residential schools and eugenics… do you think it’s only a matter of time, or maybe the desired next step, to see legal cases and class action lawsuits against HR advocates and governments? Surely there is a human rights issue here where addicts have been led astray by the decriminalizing of drugs and kept in a state of addiction?
On another note, I always enjoy reading your comments! Ever thought of starting your own substack!?
Great foundational question. My answer is that the concept of personal merit, responsibility or blame underlies much of the right-left divide. Opponents of your viewpoint on safe supply believe that you think something toxic and harmful: that becoming addicted to drugs is a moral failing and a lack of willpower. They believe that you believe that if addicts or the unemployed or anyone not achieving the best version of themselves just has the willpower to pull themselves up by their bootstraps they'd be fine. They vehemently despise this imagined version of you as someone who, at the bottom, doesn't want to help the addicted, weak or poor. This imagined 'you' is an enemy, not a problem solving partner.
In contrast to this imagined 'you', the safe supply ideologue believes that societal problems are never rooted in individual choices and that users are on a personal journey in which they have minimal agency. Their plight is mostly created by socioeconomic and equity harms, and therefore, discouraging any substance user to change behaviour is just your privilege and entitlement showing. Since users are simply cast about in the winds of these broader societal ills, they are not responsible, and asking them to go through treatment is useless and victim-blaming.
Fighting for safe supply is therefore a moral responsibility both to oppose 'you' and to help the user as a victim who cannot change until society changes. Safe supply drugs may be harmful, but not as harmful as the personal responsibility 'agenda'.
The same thing is puzzling to me. Normally I don’t buy into conspiracy theories, but is this a way for the government to make a good case to the taxpayer for the necessary transition to get these folks (and other poor people) on universal basic income eventually? Middle class disappearing etc. - only the wealthy and the poor dependents and uneducated left.
If the motivation were simple, it might go something like this: "FREE DRUGS!"
Agression is exactly what I'd expect from an addict (seriously, don't turn your back).
This is not a group of people with whom the "trust, but verify" approach works. If a forklift operator might be expected to undergo drug tests for the safety of others... anyone working in pharmicuticals, drug treatment and/or policy decisions...
And the news this week in BC is that hospitals are being ordered to provide facilities where patients can take their illicit drugs as health care workers are being exposed to them. The court is blocking BC from banning illicit drug use in schoolyards! It seems very clear that this "harm reduction" approach is causing harm to society as a whole, safe supply and decriminalization and removing "stigma" is all proving to be nonsense. Interesting that Oregon is recriminalizing now, having partially ruined cities like Portland through decrim. The collective rights of the taxpaying, non-drug using, law-abiding population are being ignored... the only word for this is "woke" and no doubt will cause a swing to the political right eventually.
I used to like the idea of designated smoking rooms like the one they had in YVR. They stopped providing those, even though smoking was and still is legal. Why? Because they felt it was a health risk to the staff who had to go in to clean those rooms. Why isn't that same argument applies to these "safe-use" facilities? Is it not more unsafe to go clean up used needles, inhale crack smoke, etc?
Congratulations on your brave reporting. Your fight on this issue mirrors the fight on puberty blockers. People who have invested their reputations in "safer supply" and "automatic affirmation" have a stake in refusing to see what's in front of their face. (This also applies to journalists who have chosen advocacy over reporting.)
Well written, thoughtful and so very frightening. What is even worse is we struggle to pay for the cancer drugs that pair with chemotherapy while we waste huge amounts of money and resources to this program and watch our communities become unglued. I do not understand where we lost our ability to look at the facts and have handed over our decision making based on special interest group pressure that is not based on fact only who bullies the best online and hunts down and shames anyone that has the courage to stand up and tell the truth. We need to decide as a people that enough is enough. My kingdom (very small that it is) for common sense leadership in all areas of government.
Mr. Zivo deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the work he has put into researching and writing about the safe supply harms that are being inflicted on communities all across Canada.
It is also appropriate to acknowledge the trust that he has built with influential addictions specialists and the patience it must take to bring these people on side and willing to speak on the record.
Zivo’s articles are a tremendous public service and a testament to good old fashioned journalism that isn’t afraid to point out that public policy can be harmful and needs revision.
My eyes were first opened to the complexities and political nature of safer supply programs through the 2 part article the Line ran last year about the Alberta model. Until then I was largely oblivious to it - but now I am really grateful for the hard line Alberta has taken against safer supply. There are many medications where there's no such thing as a "safe" amount and I think it's meaningful that even the governments who support this "safer" supply don't call it safe - just safer. It sounds like the kind of thing someone says "well this would probably make a difference and there's no harm so let's try it" without really thinking through the downstream effects and risks to the population as a whole. Sort of like - what could possibly go wrong with eliminating "x" species of troublesome pest? Well - sometimes whole ecosystems are dependent on that pest and huge things can go wrong.
I think the biggest tragedy here is that rather than owning mistakes, there is an admission of mistakes but a refusal to change course - it's like they're so close to the iceberg that they don't see any way to not hit it and they're not even going to try to apply the brakes. Except in this case - the longer safer supply continues, the more people will be harmed by it. There was a point during covid where it was clear governments needed to change direction and they were resistant to it. I guess changing direction isn't something governments do well - especially when they've turned it into a hot-button political topic (or when there are activists heavily involved.) BUT that is part of the job - change leadership. Most people are reasonable if you explain what you've learned and the reason you are making different recommendations now. And even if they aren't, the lives saved and the ACTUAL harm reduction, matters. If governments and public health TRULY cared about addicts, they would care about having an evidence based approach that actually helped them regain and resume their lives. It's somewhat ironic that they call those who question safer supply as being biased against those with addiction - yet ultimately their policies aren't doing anything to help people with addiction and may actually be directly harming them.
In the absence of identifiable, confirmable reasons, we're reduced to indulging in this kind of speculation in an effort to make sense of the story--a divination activity which has become chronic for consumers of mainstream media and government pronouncements. We've been turned into conspiracy hypothesizers, trying to figure out what's really going on inside Kafka's impenetrable castle.
Indeed. And any time a politician or activist mentions "misinformation" or "disinformation," that's your first clue that what follows is going to be total bullshit.
The root problem is that the advocates for measures like safe supply have either lost sight of the fact that drug use is the actual problem, or have never accepted that fact in the first place. There's several different interest groups pushing this policy. The most sympathetic are the first responders and harm reduction workers who see people dropping dead due to overdoses from fentanyl. They just want to make that stop, and conclude that a drug supply with a known quality will reduce the chance of overdose. Then there's the group who think that a major problem for drug addicts is their stigmatization and need to engage in criminal activities to feed their addictions. They conclude that a safe, legal supply of drugs will stabilize them and reduce harm. Finally, there's a group who think that drug use is just fine and the current problems are entirely attributable to government oppression.
The problem is that these drugs *aren't* safe to use for recreational purposes. Safe supply just kills the users more slowly. Removing the stigmatization and increasing access results in more drug addiction. The same public health officials who treat the idea of selling beer and wine in grocery stores as a catastrophic trigger for alcoholism don't seem particularly concerned about increasing access to highly addictive drugs like opiates.
The safe supply advocates have somehow also talked themselves into thinking this is a necessary and vital intervention, and anybody opposed is heartless, cruel, and ignorant. For most people, though, the alternative to this approach isn't non-intervention or neglect. They want a *much greater* level of intervention where drug addicts are pushed into treatment and rehabilitation, or at least taken off the streets and cared for in appropriate residential facilities. That's the sort of approach taken in places like the Netherlands and Portugal, but the activists here only glom onto the "decriminalization" element of it. It's basically a Cargo Cult approach to dealing with drug addiction, like those Pacific islanders who'd build fake airfields trying to lure planes full of cargo to their islands after the end of WW2.
That is truly great work and also a great shame on government “leaders” trying to sweep the devastating effects of their failed policies on “safer supply” under the rug. It seems their interest lies not in the welfare of addicts but rather in more virtue signalling at their expanse.
Enlightening article! So frustrating that the people in charge are not open to criticism and do not consider it in good faith. What is up with provincial and federal govts that they don’t want the truth known…do they not yet know that the truth is welcomed by most Canadians.
Excellent piece. Yes the high school students know what’s going on for sure.
Diversion benefits the addicts who can stay medicated and make some extra coin and perhaps organized crime who pick up new business from the new addicts created by diversion.
Anyone who has had major surgery will be aware of how quickly these opioids become an addiction. The fact that government supplied hydro morphine is being diverted to the black market is far too high a price.
Addicts are people in trouble - they’re not stupid. Very resourceful.
The naive ideologues who believe they’re defending addicts from stigma are mistaken. But their amplification in social media behind the veil of anonymity makes speaking out more difficult for experts trying to live a normal happy life without the nightmare of threats and intimidation.
My humble advice to those fearing government retribution is to toughen up. The benefit of your clinical experience, years of study and expertise are needed in this country. ( I’m thinking now of Dr. Henry Morgenthaler and the personal sacrifice he made for abortion access in Canada. )
The fact that people were intimidated is a huge cause for concern.
This is a new program that has had unintended consequences. It is our responsibility to speak out as the nurses in BC have started to do on the legalization of public drug use, particularly in a hospital setting.
Another sad commentary on the ideological biases of many of those in public office. Welll written and very informative. It’s the type of reporting we, the reading public, need far more of to keep us informed.
so many echoes of the youth trans/gender ideology movement: a lack of sound scientific data to support the treatment, knowledgeable experts afraid to speak out, activists quick to vilify dissenters, a very slow turning of the ship after a few brave souls come forward.
So the Government is treating critics of "safe supply" in the same manner they treated critics of the Covid response - gaslighting, discrediting, threats, and lies. Those who still believe that "anti-vaxxers" were full of disinformation should take note. I can hardly believe it, but now could it be possible that the BC NDP might actually lose the next election? One can hope.
Great investigative work, Adam. Keep going, we need journalists like you to keep surfacing truth.
I couldn't agree more with this observation.
The thing that keeps confounding me is the motivation to keep these programs going. What is the conspiracy that underlies this program? Are these people, out of the goodness of their hearts, so convinced that this will work that they're not willing to hear any naysayers? Or, more nefariously, are they in the pockets of the drug companies that produce the supply? Or is it something else entirely? If these people get so aggressive when told this isn't working, I really want to know why.
An excellent question and definitely in need of further investigation. My own take, which is completely observational and may not stand up to scrutiny, is that people find taking a moral stand to be very alluring, especially when the "other side" is represented by the police (which all right-thinking people know should be defunded) and the medical establishment (which all right-thinking people know are just a bunch of old, corrupt men). As to the question of how they managed to maintain such leverage in the halls of power, I think the advocates' campaign of over-the-top bullying and name-calling strikes genuine fear in the hearts of our elected representatives. The rabid base of left-leaning voters who support the provincial NDP and the federal Liberals have amassed power through shaming, or the threat of shaming. That is kryptonite to anyone looking to keep their seat in government. Sadly this is the state of discourse, and while I am stridently editorializing, I will boldly place all the blame on the Pandora's Box of social media. We were never meant to hear to the opinions of the masses without the guiding hand of disciplined journalism standards. The irony of me saying that here does not escape me.
Maybe we were just never meant to hear the raw, unfiltered opinions of our fellow humans, period.
"Evil little monkeys throwing shit at each other..."
I often wonder the same thing. "Progressives" get very aggressive when you disagree with them on this and other ideas. They claim that they are more compassionate that I am. I don't see what's not compassionate about discouraging people to not do drugs and, if they do get addicted, helping them quit their addition entirely. Sure, it's not easy, but it's way more compassionate to want to get them off drugs, in my opinion.
Also, another idea just in the back of my mind and not something I can fully articulate right now is the relationship between this and MAiD? Why are they trying to keep drug addicts alive and addicted at all costs yet encouraging non-addicted mentally ill people to kill themselves? I don't get it.
Not necessarily just progressives, but they do seem to suffer from the self-delusion of the saviour complex more frequently (or at least more obviously).
H.L. Mencken is not someone whose views I feel I should agree with, as in general his statements about nearly every group of people are so negative as to appear completeley cynical, but he said:
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve."
This was my reaction too. The story is admirably argued and persuasive, and Mr. Zivo appears to have done his research. What's missing, though, are the motivations of the activists and government officials involved: why are the former so immune to input on this issue, and why are the latter proving so unreceptive and indifferent, or perhaps fearful? If making life better for addicts and communities is the goal, why wouldn't everyone dedicated to achieving this goal want the most complete information possible, and welcome receiving it?
We are, alas, all too accustomed to seeing evidence ignored and truth denied by those who stand to profit in some way by such denial. What do the truth resisters stand to gain in this case? It's logically possible that someone could take perverse pleasure in ignoring evidence and attacking evidence-presenters, just for the heck of it; but this seems unlikely on a mass scale. It's more rational to suppose there are substantive reasons for the resistance Mr. Zivo and the medical experts who share his concerns have encountered--reasons which, if we knew them, would make this story more intelligible.
Progressive’s are always quick to claim the moral high ground and then form policy and programs around fuzzy concepts like “dignity”, “freedom to choose” or “lives matter”. COMPASSION, in capital letters.
If policy around mental health/illness, addictions or those “experiencing homelessness” is built on a foundation of fuzzy ideas of compassion rather than medical care based on research, activists who push these concepts have no room to manoeuvre. It’s just too bad that the default position is to demonize people who are faithfully trying to “do no harm” and make adjustments that are sorely needed.
Progressives have advocated for absolutely terrible policies in the past as well: they were at the vanguard of eugenics and residential schools, for example. However, rather than reflect on this history and embrace a bit humility, they instead tend to redefine those latter day progressives as somehow representing the right wing.
Policy failures that involve kids is particularly troubling and Canadians need to speak out. If some of the recipients of diverted safe supply are children, then WHOA! That’s a drug dealers dream, with low or no cost government dispensed opioids creating a new generation of drug addicts.
The fact that top Government officials and progressive “harm reduction” activists can’t see problems with that, or diss it off as collateral damage to achieve higher goals is impossible to understand.
Oh for sure. I’ve always maintained that progressive policies make for future apologies.
I’m glad you mentioned residential schools and eugenics… do you think it’s only a matter of time, or maybe the desired next step, to see legal cases and class action lawsuits against HR advocates and governments? Surely there is a human rights issue here where addicts have been led astray by the decriminalizing of drugs and kept in a state of addiction?
On another note, I always enjoy reading your comments! Ever thought of starting your own substack!?
Ideologues believe no matter what the evidence shows. Look at the Soviets. No matter what, they believed.
Great foundational question. My answer is that the concept of personal merit, responsibility or blame underlies much of the right-left divide. Opponents of your viewpoint on safe supply believe that you think something toxic and harmful: that becoming addicted to drugs is a moral failing and a lack of willpower. They believe that you believe that if addicts or the unemployed or anyone not achieving the best version of themselves just has the willpower to pull themselves up by their bootstraps they'd be fine. They vehemently despise this imagined version of you as someone who, at the bottom, doesn't want to help the addicted, weak or poor. This imagined 'you' is an enemy, not a problem solving partner.
In contrast to this imagined 'you', the safe supply ideologue believes that societal problems are never rooted in individual choices and that users are on a personal journey in which they have minimal agency. Their plight is mostly created by socioeconomic and equity harms, and therefore, discouraging any substance user to change behaviour is just your privilege and entitlement showing. Since users are simply cast about in the winds of these broader societal ills, they are not responsible, and asking them to go through treatment is useless and victim-blaming.
Fighting for safe supply is therefore a moral responsibility both to oppose 'you' and to help the user as a victim who cannot change until society changes. Safe supply drugs may be harmful, but not as harmful as the personal responsibility 'agenda'.
The same thing is puzzling to me. Normally I don’t buy into conspiracy theories, but is this a way for the government to make a good case to the taxpayer for the necessary transition to get these folks (and other poor people) on universal basic income eventually? Middle class disappearing etc. - only the wealthy and the poor dependents and uneducated left.
If the motivation were simple, it might go something like this: "FREE DRUGS!"
Agression is exactly what I'd expect from an addict (seriously, don't turn your back).
This is not a group of people with whom the "trust, but verify" approach works. If a forklift operator might be expected to undergo drug tests for the safety of others... anyone working in pharmicuticals, drug treatment and/or policy decisions...
And the news this week in BC is that hospitals are being ordered to provide facilities where patients can take their illicit drugs as health care workers are being exposed to them. The court is blocking BC from banning illicit drug use in schoolyards! It seems very clear that this "harm reduction" approach is causing harm to society as a whole, safe supply and decriminalization and removing "stigma" is all proving to be nonsense. Interesting that Oregon is recriminalizing now, having partially ruined cities like Portland through decrim. The collective rights of the taxpaying, non-drug using, law-abiding population are being ignored... the only word for this is "woke" and no doubt will cause a swing to the political right eventually.
I used to like the idea of designated smoking rooms like the one they had in YVR. They stopped providing those, even though smoking was and still is legal. Why? Because they felt it was a health risk to the staff who had to go in to clean those rooms. Why isn't that same argument applies to these "safe-use" facilities? Is it not more unsafe to go clean up used needles, inhale crack smoke, etc?
Congratulations on your brave reporting. Your fight on this issue mirrors the fight on puberty blockers. People who have invested their reputations in "safer supply" and "automatic affirmation" have a stake in refusing to see what's in front of their face. (This also applies to journalists who have chosen advocacy over reporting.)
Well written, thoughtful and so very frightening. What is even worse is we struggle to pay for the cancer drugs that pair with chemotherapy while we waste huge amounts of money and resources to this program and watch our communities become unglued. I do not understand where we lost our ability to look at the facts and have handed over our decision making based on special interest group pressure that is not based on fact only who bullies the best online and hunts down and shames anyone that has the courage to stand up and tell the truth. We need to decide as a people that enough is enough. My kingdom (very small that it is) for common sense leadership in all areas of government.
Mr. Zivo deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the work he has put into researching and writing about the safe supply harms that are being inflicted on communities all across Canada.
It is also appropriate to acknowledge the trust that he has built with influential addictions specialists and the patience it must take to bring these people on side and willing to speak on the record.
Zivo’s articles are a tremendous public service and a testament to good old fashioned journalism that isn’t afraid to point out that public policy can be harmful and needs revision.
My eyes were first opened to the complexities and political nature of safer supply programs through the 2 part article the Line ran last year about the Alberta model. Until then I was largely oblivious to it - but now I am really grateful for the hard line Alberta has taken against safer supply. There are many medications where there's no such thing as a "safe" amount and I think it's meaningful that even the governments who support this "safer" supply don't call it safe - just safer. It sounds like the kind of thing someone says "well this would probably make a difference and there's no harm so let's try it" without really thinking through the downstream effects and risks to the population as a whole. Sort of like - what could possibly go wrong with eliminating "x" species of troublesome pest? Well - sometimes whole ecosystems are dependent on that pest and huge things can go wrong.
I think the biggest tragedy here is that rather than owning mistakes, there is an admission of mistakes but a refusal to change course - it's like they're so close to the iceberg that they don't see any way to not hit it and they're not even going to try to apply the brakes. Except in this case - the longer safer supply continues, the more people will be harmed by it. There was a point during covid where it was clear governments needed to change direction and they were resistant to it. I guess changing direction isn't something governments do well - especially when they've turned it into a hot-button political topic (or when there are activists heavily involved.) BUT that is part of the job - change leadership. Most people are reasonable if you explain what you've learned and the reason you are making different recommendations now. And even if they aren't, the lives saved and the ACTUAL harm reduction, matters. If governments and public health TRULY cared about addicts, they would care about having an evidence based approach that actually helped them regain and resume their lives. It's somewhat ironic that they call those who question safer supply as being biased against those with addiction - yet ultimately their policies aren't doing anything to help people with addiction and may actually be directly harming them.
In the absence of identifiable, confirmable reasons, we're reduced to indulging in this kind of speculation in an effort to make sense of the story--a divination activity which has become chronic for consumers of mainstream media and government pronouncements. We've been turned into conspiracy hypothesizers, trying to figure out what's really going on inside Kafka's impenetrable castle.
We truly live in a post-truth world, where facts don't matter and government propaganda is the only truth. Orwell was beyond prescient.
When I read this, I wish those crooks were beaten savagely by an angry mob of parents of dead children who overdosed on these drugs.
I'm not advocating for it, merely fantasizing.
Indeed. And any time a politician or activist mentions "misinformation" or "disinformation," that's your first clue that what follows is going to be total bullshit.
The root problem is that the advocates for measures like safe supply have either lost sight of the fact that drug use is the actual problem, or have never accepted that fact in the first place. There's several different interest groups pushing this policy. The most sympathetic are the first responders and harm reduction workers who see people dropping dead due to overdoses from fentanyl. They just want to make that stop, and conclude that a drug supply with a known quality will reduce the chance of overdose. Then there's the group who think that a major problem for drug addicts is their stigmatization and need to engage in criminal activities to feed their addictions. They conclude that a safe, legal supply of drugs will stabilize them and reduce harm. Finally, there's a group who think that drug use is just fine and the current problems are entirely attributable to government oppression.
The problem is that these drugs *aren't* safe to use for recreational purposes. Safe supply just kills the users more slowly. Removing the stigmatization and increasing access results in more drug addiction. The same public health officials who treat the idea of selling beer and wine in grocery stores as a catastrophic trigger for alcoholism don't seem particularly concerned about increasing access to highly addictive drugs like opiates.
The safe supply advocates have somehow also talked themselves into thinking this is a necessary and vital intervention, and anybody opposed is heartless, cruel, and ignorant. For most people, though, the alternative to this approach isn't non-intervention or neglect. They want a *much greater* level of intervention where drug addicts are pushed into treatment and rehabilitation, or at least taken off the streets and cared for in appropriate residential facilities. That's the sort of approach taken in places like the Netherlands and Portugal, but the activists here only glom onto the "decriminalization" element of it. It's basically a Cargo Cult approach to dealing with drug addiction, like those Pacific islanders who'd build fake airfields trying to lure planes full of cargo to their islands after the end of WW2.
That is truly great work and also a great shame on government “leaders” trying to sweep the devastating effects of their failed policies on “safer supply” under the rug. It seems their interest lies not in the welfare of addicts but rather in more virtue signalling at their expanse.
Enlightening article! So frustrating that the people in charge are not open to criticism and do not consider it in good faith. What is up with provincial and federal govts that they don’t want the truth known…do they not yet know that the truth is welcomed by most Canadians.
Excellent piece. Yes the high school students know what’s going on for sure.
Diversion benefits the addicts who can stay medicated and make some extra coin and perhaps organized crime who pick up new business from the new addicts created by diversion.
Anyone who has had major surgery will be aware of how quickly these opioids become an addiction. The fact that government supplied hydro morphine is being diverted to the black market is far too high a price.
Addicts are people in trouble - they’re not stupid. Very resourceful.
The naive ideologues who believe they’re defending addicts from stigma are mistaken. But their amplification in social media behind the veil of anonymity makes speaking out more difficult for experts trying to live a normal happy life without the nightmare of threats and intimidation.
My humble advice to those fearing government retribution is to toughen up. The benefit of your clinical experience, years of study and expertise are needed in this country. ( I’m thinking now of Dr. Henry Morgenthaler and the personal sacrifice he made for abortion access in Canada. )
The fact that people were intimidated is a huge cause for concern.
This is a new program that has had unintended consequences. It is our responsibility to speak out as the nurses in BC have started to do on the legalization of public drug use, particularly in a hospital setting.
Great reporting. Don’t ever stop.
Another sad commentary on the ideological biases of many of those in public office. Welll written and very informative. It’s the type of reporting we, the reading public, need far more of to keep us informed.
so many echoes of the youth trans/gender ideology movement: a lack of sound scientific data to support the treatment, knowledgeable experts afraid to speak out, activists quick to vilify dissenters, a very slow turning of the ship after a few brave souls come forward.
So the Government is treating critics of "safe supply" in the same manner they treated critics of the Covid response - gaslighting, discrediting, threats, and lies. Those who still believe that "anti-vaxxers" were full of disinformation should take note. I can hardly believe it, but now could it be possible that the BC NDP might actually lose the next election? One can hope.
Zivo is a solid, solid, journalist.