Right into my veins, please. Stigmatizing conduct (the conduct impugned in this column in particular being a great example of conduct requiring just that) is a great tool to assist in discouraging behaviour. The cigarette example is a great one. Take it from someone who was there, back in the 80s when the movement to ban smoking in public buildings was gathering steam there was no shortage of, “ooh, smoking is gross - nobody wants to kiss a smoker, it is disgusting to have to breathe that air, your clothes and hair end up stinking if you go to a bar for the night, smokers’ fingers get yellow etc.” You rarely hear that degree of passion today but that is likely due at least in part to the fact that *the stigma worked* with the result that personal usage no longer impacts public spaces. One lesson here may be that you can stigmatize away (or at least reduce) the need to use stigma. Drunk driving is another example where I think stigma has helped – you no longer hear jokes like “of course I drove home, I was too drunk to walk”.
A problem with addressing rampant public drug use is that too often people miss the fact that there are more than two options. It’s not an either-or, a choice between the gallows for someone caught with a joint and a hedonistic free-for-all. I happen to think all drugs should be “legal” for adults but the conduct itself should remain highly stigmatized. Yes, I know, it is easier to introduce stigma where there was virtually none before (see cigarettes) than it is to maintain stigma when you remove the greatest possible stigma (criminalization). But surely it can be done, “Reefer Madness” and Nancy Reagan’s simplistic “Just Say No” campaign notwithstanding. You start by having clear prohibitions on specific use (location, for example) despite the fact there is no longer a total prohibition on personal use. So, snorting cocaine on a street corner or at the local pub and shooting up on the street are both completely out of the question and resorting to the criminal code or Provincial Offences codes and mandatory treatment for those who won’t/can’t stop themselves from doing this has to be in play.
I also love the point that we now have Human Rights commissars wailing about stigma on this issue when (completely unwarranted) stigma is the cornerstone of the entire woke agenda. These fucking misplaced “empathy” fanatics are gonna’ be the downfall of our civilization.
My first desire for people struggling with addiction is easy access to fully funded treatment. Absent that, I'm fine with people managing their addictions in prosocial ways -- ie; in private and not harming anyone else. There's a role for things like needle exchanges and drug testing kits in this context. Maybe even a heavily restricted and well monitored safe supply in some cases. (Provided the actual facilities are properly run and heavily policed.)
But once we get into public use and public misconduct well, then, you've made your private addiction a public problem and the public now has an obligation to step in with some combination of criminal punishment or mandatory treatment. We shouldn't tolerate tent encampments. Nor should we be tolerating people passed out on the street, nor doing drugs in public. Nor making a menace of themselves on public transit. These are actions that fundamentally undermine public space, and the rights of non drug users to function appropriately in society. JG
When my father came home from WW2 he went to work as an orderly in our Provincial psychiatric hospital. It was referred to as the mental hospital, actually a beautiful rural setting of gardens, fields, a manicured golf course, decorative stone walls, all maintained by the patients, supervised by staff.
Of course we all know what happened to these facilities: Govts and special interests deemed them inhumane and stigmatising ( there's that word).
The result? Over decades these people were left to survive in a system that no longer provided care and protection and now many live on the streets and drugs are their solace.
My believe is that if you can fix the mental health crisis you will make a huge dent in the drug crisis.
I think "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" did an incredible amount of damage by popularizing that negative view of the asylum system. More recently, shows like "Orange Is the New Black" did the same sort of damage by popularizing misconceptions that led to disastrous "reforms" to things like bail & remand.
Well, I've repeated many times in the last 8 years, situated as I am in the smoking hole of Victoria BC drug policy, stigma saved my life. If, instead of the shame I felt at my behaviour, I was told to feel satisfied, confident (even encouraged?), I'd be dead.
Walking down Portage Ave, a teenager circa 1979, my cousin turns to me, pointing to a lump of filthy clothes in a doorway that we knew to be a person, "that's you in a few years." He and I were close and did everything together, so he might have known. I was blind with rage... and used a lot of drugs and alcohol that night, because I did every night. His comment was unfiltered, spontaneous, and brutal because of it's truth. It hurt a lot and I never forgot it.
Our HR Watchdog, Govender, needs to go back to watchdog training school, or just shut up. They know nothing but their feels, but their certainty is causing death and suffering. Even the most ignorant parent learns to love the child and condemn the behaviour, and this... this is the moral crime: to say otherwise is cruel and condescending. Its an utter failure to expect, hope for, work for, better among the humans.
They deserve that hope, that expectation, that effort because this is where the potential lies, the possibility, out of all the possibilities, and with free will, that a positive change might take place. Instead Govender consigns those suffering to "unstigmatized" behaviours that shame themselves, degrade the quality of life, treading fantanyl poisoned waters until they slip below.
Jen is right. The correct, life-affirming, positive, foundation for these suffering humans looks like this: For you who are ready, who will try with an honest effort, even with little chance of success each time... the help should be unlimited, and available at that very moment. If it's not available it is nearly pointless. For the rest, bad behaviour is stigmatized in the same way rotten food that will make us sick makes us feel disgust. It's not good for the corpus (the cells in the individual, the community around them, the city in which that community lives, the human race.... for fuck's sake.)
When politicians pretend that these policies are working out well when we can see the results in our streets—that’s the definition of ‘gaslight’ (another overused term, but here it fits). It also seems cynical to say this is the best we can envision, i.e. providing safe supply until those accessing it eventually die from their addiction. Wab Kinew sounds like he is onto some common sense.
I agree it is worth walking back policy that is not working but advocating for shame through stigma conveniently ignores that we know much more about addiction and how many maybe most who deal with addiction self-medicate to deal with trauma or mental illness. Recovery is a misnomer for addiction when the root causes are ignored and stigmatizing the individuals by extension is a step I wouldn’t take. Who am I to judge and am I not my ‘brother’s keeper’? Suggesting stigma is the way forward neglects how complex and complicated this issue is and the solution should not be one that allows me to walk anywhere in Vancouver. YVR has always had areas where it is less safe to walk as with any big city.
If you get to the bottom of the piece, I deal with this point. It's one thing to not shame an individual who is struggling with addiction. It's another thing to try to totally eliminate the stigma of anti-social behavior on a societal level - while failing to address the actual harms of that behaviour. We can deal with individual circumstances with compassion and empathy while still imposing certain standards of conduct and behaviour for people in public.
You're completely correct that drug abuse is correlated with trauma. What I don't understand is what version of compassion and empathy makes it ok to do nothing while traumatized individuals effectively commit slow motion suicide in public via drugs? Is allowing a homeless individual who was abused as a child continue to self medicate until he inevitably dies in the cold a thing a compassionate society actually does? Or is there a point at which we acknowledge there's a role for both criminal justice and mandatory treatment to step in, here? When you realize the incredible life circumstances of many drug addicts, the conditions we've normalized via "harm reduction" only seem even more horrific to me, not less. JG
Why I was "self-medicating", meaning ingesting harmful drugs and alcohol, turned out to be less than useless information in the project of trying to stop. This is the point missed by compassionate people. The "why" quickly became fodder for my infinite capacity for justification after-the-fact. Even when it wasn't, the "why's" are a pernicious distraction.
What's missed is to distinguish the person from the behaviour. You can and should say to me, "I'm very sorry for what happened to you, and it was wrong. Your current behaviour is also wrong."
At the point of possible positive change, the "why" is irrelevant. At the point of change, the only question to focus on is "what are you going to do about it right now?"
Your situation sji is unique to you and I am genuinely happy for you that you are recovering well and no longer harming yourself. My intent was not to diminish your success.
I know 4 other people in my immediate circle whose ‘why’ was undiagnosed ADHD and-or mental illness and not an event or circumstance or trauma that could deem to be “less than useful information”. My comment was about shame and stigma being the entirely wrong path to addiction recovery when disabling conditions are behind self-medication with harmful drugs. Also one does not ‘recover’ from mental illness and recurrent episodes might again lead to self-medication and falling back into addiction if you lack the basics of life to cope. This is not shameful behaviour to be stigmatized. Both the illness AND the addiction need to be treated in a recovery model and there should be acceptance for cycles of recovery. These are not one and done as is expected of this current recovery model. Sometimes these efforts are onion-peeling exercises, and the root causes not ones that can be easily dismissed. If you need a good book to read about cycles of recovery try From the Ashes by Jessie Thistle. Best wishes on your recovery.
My situation is not at all unique, and it would be a mistake to assume that; I've met many, many people who are dry, and sober, in jail, detox, and support groups who describe the same experiences and feelings, and I've done my best to help more than I can count. It's also true some people need a different approach.
Shame and stigma are not appropriate as judgement from another person because judgement is inappropriate, pointless, and always hypocritical.
I have every marker, 100% score, for ADHD as diagnosed from school transcripts by a BC psychiatrist expert in the field. I've also had too many traumatic experiences a bit too shocking describe here. The psychiatrist has experience with addiction and recovery working on Hastings in Vancouver. He agrees neither are a crutch to either excuse, nor mitigate, the need to sober up first, to make any progress. A bit like the weather, one notices the conditions, maybe changes clothes, but still time to get a move on...
Shame and stigma for using dangerous, illegal drugs, to avoid the hard responsibility for the life I've been given, even with a few challenges others might not have is entirely appropriate for anyone in such circumstances. Shame and stigma for staying high, and wet, cold, filthy, and diseased, makes sense. Of course it's wrong to go about telling people they should be ashamed (see above), but only the uninformed would say to such a person, "you should not feel this way." They are not helping, quite the opposite. The correct response is, "I can understand how you would feel this way. Is there anything I can do to help."
It's important not to confuse or conflate the self-destructive and shameful behaviour with mental/emotional health conditions, or experiences. The behaviour, that comes with existential risk, has to stop if progress will be made. Reasons or excuses are pointless and useless in that effort.
As a result of the help, and especially the unflinching feedback, of many people who love me, loved me, I learned tools to thrive, had excellent careers, and, I hope, have helped some people along the way.
Drug abusing/enabling programs are built around a moral obligation of society to protect each other from harm. I can follow the logic of that to a point, but in real time how are things working out?
Public safety concerns are valid, as are concerns about public littering, loss of public spaces by normalization of encampments and a looming threat of public health as drug abusers turn urban areas into open sewer systems harkening back to the 18 hundreds.
The worst failure of all is refuting the need to get people off hard drugs NOW to save themselves. To save their brains and bodies from the ravages of drugs that will inevitably destroy any concept of leading a productive life in society, free of constraints.
The public wants a stop to the normalization of drug addled zombies in our midst and being coddled along by authority figures who are well meaning but misguided. Let's get a restorative approach going that saves drug users before it's too late and give public spaces back to the general public.
Jen, some of your best work comes when you name our insanity. Well done. This piece is great. You have a deft hand balancing reality with compassion. We need more of this.
Absolute truth. Manipulation of language is part of it, too. You mention "safety", the meaning of which has been turned inside out. But also "hate", which has been diluted so much that it demonizes anyone on this or other issues who speaks up for common sense (i.e. Rowling). Today, the NDP calls drug addicts squatting in. parks "residents". (Homelessness is a real and serious issue, but having lived opposite a massive encampment for several years, what I've seen isn't so much that as cop-free zones resulting in centres for open drug dealing, untreated addicts, and people mentally unwell and off their meds.
So many excellent points here in a classic column. One of the key take aways has to be the Portuguese success based on a nose to tail government commitment to end this problem once and for all. As CAMH in Ontario has written over and over again treatment and supportive housing is woefully under- resourced in Ontario. Alberta did a full court press a few years ago and I’d be interested to know how that effort fared. Stigma is warranted as is compassionate care in recovery. One problem is the consent to treatment laws in Ontario’s health care legislation means involuntary incarceration can only last 72 hours. Not long enough to treat the psychosis, diagnose mental co-morbidities and administer and monitor withdrawal meds. Not one person living on the street wants that life once their sanity is restored. I know this because I organized a province wide consultation of stakeholders and recovered addicts for the Ontario government decades ago. These people want and need society’s help to recover their humanity. Our governments need to commit the resources to make it happen.
She has character and leadership. The Leafs haven't had that since Gilmour...maybe Sundin. Poor Leafs....."hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". I don't think even they have a clue what happened in the playoffs last year, but they haven't recovered from it.
Gilmour left me speechless. I have no words. Like Wendel Clark before him, he left it all out there. No other star in the league was treated as poorly by the officials as was he.
Jen Gerson is the Doug Gilmour of Canadian journalism.
Exactly right. Our society has lost the plot with its drive to rampant permissiveness. A society exists because of social cohesion that is created by positive role models and standards combined with negative stigmatization for lack of adherence. Sometimes a little bit of "intolerance" goes a long way.
I’m not sure if real harm reduction would work here, but I know that’s not what we are doing.
There should be four pillars to a drug strategy: harm reduction (safe injection, “liberalization “, etc.), prevention, treatment and enforcement.
In Canada, as usual, we half-ass things and implemented only one pillar, harm reduction. The other pillars are either under resourced, unimplemented, or otherwise inadequate.
And then the harm reduction activists wonder why the public has given up on harm reduction and resort to their only weapon, stigmatization.
Very good article Jen and well made points on the socalled "progressives" use of stigmas. We've listened to that boring, worn-out excuse here in BC for years.
I luv Jen's descriptive use of people replacing their eyeballs with marbles!!
Right into my veins, please. Stigmatizing conduct (the conduct impugned in this column in particular being a great example of conduct requiring just that) is a great tool to assist in discouraging behaviour. The cigarette example is a great one. Take it from someone who was there, back in the 80s when the movement to ban smoking in public buildings was gathering steam there was no shortage of, “ooh, smoking is gross - nobody wants to kiss a smoker, it is disgusting to have to breathe that air, your clothes and hair end up stinking if you go to a bar for the night, smokers’ fingers get yellow etc.” You rarely hear that degree of passion today but that is likely due at least in part to the fact that *the stigma worked* with the result that personal usage no longer impacts public spaces. One lesson here may be that you can stigmatize away (or at least reduce) the need to use stigma. Drunk driving is another example where I think stigma has helped – you no longer hear jokes like “of course I drove home, I was too drunk to walk”.
A problem with addressing rampant public drug use is that too often people miss the fact that there are more than two options. It’s not an either-or, a choice between the gallows for someone caught with a joint and a hedonistic free-for-all. I happen to think all drugs should be “legal” for adults but the conduct itself should remain highly stigmatized. Yes, I know, it is easier to introduce stigma where there was virtually none before (see cigarettes) than it is to maintain stigma when you remove the greatest possible stigma (criminalization). But surely it can be done, “Reefer Madness” and Nancy Reagan’s simplistic “Just Say No” campaign notwithstanding. You start by having clear prohibitions on specific use (location, for example) despite the fact there is no longer a total prohibition on personal use. So, snorting cocaine on a street corner or at the local pub and shooting up on the street are both completely out of the question and resorting to the criminal code or Provincial Offences codes and mandatory treatment for those who won’t/can’t stop themselves from doing this has to be in play.
I also love the point that we now have Human Rights commissars wailing about stigma on this issue when (completely unwarranted) stigma is the cornerstone of the entire woke agenda. These fucking misplaced “empathy” fanatics are gonna’ be the downfall of our civilization.
Fwiw, I think this is basically spot on.
My first desire for people struggling with addiction is easy access to fully funded treatment. Absent that, I'm fine with people managing their addictions in prosocial ways -- ie; in private and not harming anyone else. There's a role for things like needle exchanges and drug testing kits in this context. Maybe even a heavily restricted and well monitored safe supply in some cases. (Provided the actual facilities are properly run and heavily policed.)
But once we get into public use and public misconduct well, then, you've made your private addiction a public problem and the public now has an obligation to step in with some combination of criminal punishment or mandatory treatment. We shouldn't tolerate tent encampments. Nor should we be tolerating people passed out on the street, nor doing drugs in public. Nor making a menace of themselves on public transit. These are actions that fundamentally undermine public space, and the rights of non drug users to function appropriately in society. JG
When my father came home from WW2 he went to work as an orderly in our Provincial psychiatric hospital. It was referred to as the mental hospital, actually a beautiful rural setting of gardens, fields, a manicured golf course, decorative stone walls, all maintained by the patients, supervised by staff.
Of course we all know what happened to these facilities: Govts and special interests deemed them inhumane and stigmatising ( there's that word).
The result? Over decades these people were left to survive in a system that no longer provided care and protection and now many live on the streets and drugs are their solace.
My believe is that if you can fix the mental health crisis you will make a huge dent in the drug crisis.
I think "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" did an incredible amount of damage by popularizing that negative view of the asylum system. More recently, shows like "Orange Is the New Black" did the same sort of damage by popularizing misconceptions that led to disastrous "reforms" to things like bail & remand.
I feel vindicated finally
Hey Tony! I remember when you first ran during Mike Harris' Common Sense election and you promised to harmonize the GST and Ontario PST.
Did you feel vindicated when the Liberals brought it in 15 years later?
Could you stay on topic and make a point? Dragging up a 30 year old political decision hardly makes a point.
I ... just ... can't ... get it ... out ... of my ... ... ... system!
I really only went that way because it didn't seem likely that was the real Tony Clement ... and impersonating him seemed quite off topic too.
But maybe the point could be that any bad political decisions can come back to haunt you.
Or that we just shouldn't be electing politicians to make decisions?
Tangential, or just too subtle a connection?
Well, I've repeated many times in the last 8 years, situated as I am in the smoking hole of Victoria BC drug policy, stigma saved my life. If, instead of the shame I felt at my behaviour, I was told to feel satisfied, confident (even encouraged?), I'd be dead.
Walking down Portage Ave, a teenager circa 1979, my cousin turns to me, pointing to a lump of filthy clothes in a doorway that we knew to be a person, "that's you in a few years." He and I were close and did everything together, so he might have known. I was blind with rage... and used a lot of drugs and alcohol that night, because I did every night. His comment was unfiltered, spontaneous, and brutal because of it's truth. It hurt a lot and I never forgot it.
Our HR Watchdog, Govender, needs to go back to watchdog training school, or just shut up. They know nothing but their feels, but their certainty is causing death and suffering. Even the most ignorant parent learns to love the child and condemn the behaviour, and this... this is the moral crime: to say otherwise is cruel and condescending. Its an utter failure to expect, hope for, work for, better among the humans.
They deserve that hope, that expectation, that effort because this is where the potential lies, the possibility, out of all the possibilities, and with free will, that a positive change might take place. Instead Govender consigns those suffering to "unstigmatized" behaviours that shame themselves, degrade the quality of life, treading fantanyl poisoned waters until they slip below.
Jen is right. The correct, life-affirming, positive, foundation for these suffering humans looks like this: For you who are ready, who will try with an honest effort, even with little chance of success each time... the help should be unlimited, and available at that very moment. If it's not available it is nearly pointless. For the rest, bad behaviour is stigmatized in the same way rotten food that will make us sick makes us feel disgust. It's not good for the corpus (the cells in the individual, the community around them, the city in which that community lives, the human race.... for fuck's sake.)
When politicians pretend that these policies are working out well when we can see the results in our streets—that’s the definition of ‘gaslight’ (another overused term, but here it fits). It also seems cynical to say this is the best we can envision, i.e. providing safe supply until those accessing it eventually die from their addiction. Wab Kinew sounds like he is onto some common sense.
And to the UCP government, who started the wave of sanity that may finally prevail on this subject a big thank you!
And a prayer to all the loved ones lost that helped influence the change.
I agree it is worth walking back policy that is not working but advocating for shame through stigma conveniently ignores that we know much more about addiction and how many maybe most who deal with addiction self-medicate to deal with trauma or mental illness. Recovery is a misnomer for addiction when the root causes are ignored and stigmatizing the individuals by extension is a step I wouldn’t take. Who am I to judge and am I not my ‘brother’s keeper’? Suggesting stigma is the way forward neglects how complex and complicated this issue is and the solution should not be one that allows me to walk anywhere in Vancouver. YVR has always had areas where it is less safe to walk as with any big city.
If you get to the bottom of the piece, I deal with this point. It's one thing to not shame an individual who is struggling with addiction. It's another thing to try to totally eliminate the stigma of anti-social behavior on a societal level - while failing to address the actual harms of that behaviour. We can deal with individual circumstances with compassion and empathy while still imposing certain standards of conduct and behaviour for people in public.
You're completely correct that drug abuse is correlated with trauma. What I don't understand is what version of compassion and empathy makes it ok to do nothing while traumatized individuals effectively commit slow motion suicide in public via drugs? Is allowing a homeless individual who was abused as a child continue to self medicate until he inevitably dies in the cold a thing a compassionate society actually does? Or is there a point at which we acknowledge there's a role for both criminal justice and mandatory treatment to step in, here? When you realize the incredible life circumstances of many drug addicts, the conditions we've normalized via "harm reduction" only seem even more horrific to me, not less. JG
Why I was "self-medicating", meaning ingesting harmful drugs and alcohol, turned out to be less than useless information in the project of trying to stop. This is the point missed by compassionate people. The "why" quickly became fodder for my infinite capacity for justification after-the-fact. Even when it wasn't, the "why's" are a pernicious distraction.
What's missed is to distinguish the person from the behaviour. You can and should say to me, "I'm very sorry for what happened to you, and it was wrong. Your current behaviour is also wrong."
At the point of possible positive change, the "why" is irrelevant. At the point of change, the only question to focus on is "what are you going to do about it right now?"
Thank you for sharing that. JG
Your situation sji is unique to you and I am genuinely happy for you that you are recovering well and no longer harming yourself. My intent was not to diminish your success.
I know 4 other people in my immediate circle whose ‘why’ was undiagnosed ADHD and-or mental illness and not an event or circumstance or trauma that could deem to be “less than useful information”. My comment was about shame and stigma being the entirely wrong path to addiction recovery when disabling conditions are behind self-medication with harmful drugs. Also one does not ‘recover’ from mental illness and recurrent episodes might again lead to self-medication and falling back into addiction if you lack the basics of life to cope. This is not shameful behaviour to be stigmatized. Both the illness AND the addiction need to be treated in a recovery model and there should be acceptance for cycles of recovery. These are not one and done as is expected of this current recovery model. Sometimes these efforts are onion-peeling exercises, and the root causes not ones that can be easily dismissed. If you need a good book to read about cycles of recovery try From the Ashes by Jessie Thistle. Best wishes on your recovery.
My situation is not at all unique, and it would be a mistake to assume that; I've met many, many people who are dry, and sober, in jail, detox, and support groups who describe the same experiences and feelings, and I've done my best to help more than I can count. It's also true some people need a different approach.
Shame and stigma are not appropriate as judgement from another person because judgement is inappropriate, pointless, and always hypocritical.
I have every marker, 100% score, for ADHD as diagnosed from school transcripts by a BC psychiatrist expert in the field. I've also had too many traumatic experiences a bit too shocking describe here. The psychiatrist has experience with addiction and recovery working on Hastings in Vancouver. He agrees neither are a crutch to either excuse, nor mitigate, the need to sober up first, to make any progress. A bit like the weather, one notices the conditions, maybe changes clothes, but still time to get a move on...
Shame and stigma for using dangerous, illegal drugs, to avoid the hard responsibility for the life I've been given, even with a few challenges others might not have is entirely appropriate for anyone in such circumstances. Shame and stigma for staying high, and wet, cold, filthy, and diseased, makes sense. Of course it's wrong to go about telling people they should be ashamed (see above), but only the uninformed would say to such a person, "you should not feel this way." They are not helping, quite the opposite. The correct response is, "I can understand how you would feel this way. Is there anything I can do to help."
It's important not to confuse or conflate the self-destructive and shameful behaviour with mental/emotional health conditions, or experiences. The behaviour, that comes with existential risk, has to stop if progress will be made. Reasons or excuses are pointless and useless in that effort.
As a result of the help, and especially the unflinching feedback, of many people who love me, loved me, I learned tools to thrive, had excellent careers, and, I hope, have helped some people along the way.
Thank for your willingness to share more of your recovery story. I can see how determined and courageous you have been. Once again best wishes.
Maybe, thanks.
Certainly very, very lucky.
Hiding behind " it's a complex issue", is what our politicians and administrators do best, and I'm talking country wide, regardless of the issue.
I aways wondered if the "safe supply" advocates would agree with handing out free booze to alcoholics...
Drug abusing/enabling programs are built around a moral obligation of society to protect each other from harm. I can follow the logic of that to a point, but in real time how are things working out?
Public safety concerns are valid, as are concerns about public littering, loss of public spaces by normalization of encampments and a looming threat of public health as drug abusers turn urban areas into open sewer systems harkening back to the 18 hundreds.
The worst failure of all is refuting the need to get people off hard drugs NOW to save themselves. To save their brains and bodies from the ravages of drugs that will inevitably destroy any concept of leading a productive life in society, free of constraints.
The public wants a stop to the normalization of drug addled zombies in our midst and being coddled along by authority figures who are well meaning but misguided. Let's get a restorative approach going that saves drug users before it's too late and give public spaces back to the general public.
Exactly!
There are no rights without responsibilities! (Just like the management aphorism of no responsibility without control.)
Jen, some of your best work comes when you name our insanity. Well done. This piece is great. You have a deft hand balancing reality with compassion. We need more of this.
Keep going! And thanks.
Absolute truth. Manipulation of language is part of it, too. You mention "safety", the meaning of which has been turned inside out. But also "hate", which has been diluted so much that it demonizes anyone on this or other issues who speaks up for common sense (i.e. Rowling). Today, the NDP calls drug addicts squatting in. parks "residents". (Homelessness is a real and serious issue, but having lived opposite a massive encampment for several years, what I've seen isn't so much that as cop-free zones resulting in centres for open drug dealing, untreated addicts, and people mentally unwell and off their meds.
So many excellent points here in a classic column. One of the key take aways has to be the Portuguese success based on a nose to tail government commitment to end this problem once and for all. As CAMH in Ontario has written over and over again treatment and supportive housing is woefully under- resourced in Ontario. Alberta did a full court press a few years ago and I’d be interested to know how that effort fared. Stigma is warranted as is compassionate care in recovery. One problem is the consent to treatment laws in Ontario’s health care legislation means involuntary incarceration can only last 72 hours. Not long enough to treat the psychosis, diagnose mental co-morbidities and administer and monitor withdrawal meds. Not one person living on the street wants that life once their sanity is restored. I know this because I organized a province wide consultation of stakeholders and recovered addicts for the Ontario government decades ago. These people want and need society’s help to recover their humanity. Our governments need to commit the resources to make it happen.
Reading this was cathartic. Thank you.
That's 2 days in a row. Thank you, Thank you so much.
Hell Yah, Jen!
I would take a bullet for Jen Gerson.
Hopefully, it will not come to that. JG
Well, maybe not a bullet, but a subscription to The Line...
She's a genius with a keyboard.
No argument there.
What refreshing, lead-with-the-chin journalism!
I wish the Maple Leafs played the way she comments.
Courage, fury, and magnificent elegance.
She has character and leadership. The Leafs haven't had that since Gilmour...maybe Sundin. Poor Leafs....."hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". I don't think even they have a clue what happened in the playoffs last year, but they haven't recovered from it.
I was never a Sundin fan. Soft as Swedish butter.
Gilmour left me speechless. I have no words. Like Wendel Clark before him, he left it all out there. No other star in the league was treated as poorly by the officials as was he.
Jen Gerson is the Doug Gilmour of Canadian journalism.
I concur, but we'd better stop before it goes to her head!! :)
I'll be right behind you.
An excellent piece, but its wild it needs to be written.
Exactly right. Our society has lost the plot with its drive to rampant permissiveness. A society exists because of social cohesion that is created by positive role models and standards combined with negative stigmatization for lack of adherence. Sometimes a little bit of "intolerance" goes a long way.
It's difficult to stigmatize drug addiction without stigmatizing many other bad behaviours.
Canadians still have the attitude that they would rather destigmatize everything than restigmatize something they personally don't object to.
I’m not sure if real harm reduction would work here, but I know that’s not what we are doing.
There should be four pillars to a drug strategy: harm reduction (safe injection, “liberalization “, etc.), prevention, treatment and enforcement.
In Canada, as usual, we half-ass things and implemented only one pillar, harm reduction. The other pillars are either under resourced, unimplemented, or otherwise inadequate.
And then the harm reduction activists wonder why the public has given up on harm reduction and resort to their only weapon, stigmatization.
Very good article Jen and well made points on the socalled "progressives" use of stigmas. We've listened to that boring, worn-out excuse here in BC for years.
I luv Jen's descriptive use of people replacing their eyeballs with marbles!!
Ohhhh so true !
It's rampant and like a disease.
Look at me, Look at at me !!!
I can't see and I'm NDP!!
Especially after this weekend vote of
82% for Eby, Leader of the Direction Lost.
Thanks Jen.
Love your rhyme!