Thoughts on BC Politics and More

A Salmon Arm woman guides monthly groups of parents or families struggling to cope with adult children who are addicted to drugs, have mental health issues or have a combination of both. “We’re talking about loved ones living rough, have severe mental illnesses and are using substances on the street,” said Kathleen, whose adult son has schizophrenia and a drug addiction. “The groups are peer led, and even though I facilitate... I gain strength from others that are in similar circumstances.” Kathleen’s son has been moving through a revolving door of jail and mental health units in hospitals for many years. iNFOnews.ca is withholding Kathleen's last name, at her request, so as not to identify her son who is currently in custody and is unable to give consent to share parts of his story ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena and Official Opposition Critic for Mental Health and Addictions, is calling out the provincial government for what she describes as a “dangerously defeatist” and hypocritical approach to addiction recovery — following a Ministry of Health update that confirmed patients are not told about recovery-based treatment options unless they explicitly ask. “This government would never take this approach with cancer, diabetes, or even vaccinations — imagine if we told patients we’d only offer vaccines if they specifically requested them,” said Rattée. “By that logic, should we be launching massive education campaigns to schoolchildren warning them that if they ever try drugs, they’re doomed? That there’s no hope? That recovery isn’t even worth talking about?” In a June 4 news release, the Ministry of Health reiterated its stance that individuals in the healthcare system are not proactively informed about abstinence-based recovery unless they request it. Critics argu...

The BC Nurses’ Union says it’s “disturbing” that physicians in Victoria and Nanaimo have had to take time away from their work and resort to erecting pop-up overdose prevention sites for hospital patients struggling with addiction. Those services ought to be provided by the health authority, the BCNU said in a statement to the Times Colonist this week. The BCNU, which emphasizes that it believes in harm-reduction practices for patients, has also supported nurses who have complained about walking through plumes of toxic smoke in hospital hallways as a result of a permissive attitude toward drug use in hospitals ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  The ongoing debate surrounding British Columbia’s approach to drug addiction treatment, particularly its emphasis on harm reduction, has become increasingly contentious. While proponents of harm reduction argue  it aims to minimize the negative consequences of drug use without necessarily requiring abstinence—through measures like safe injection sites and the provision of safe supply drugs such as prescription heroin— this strategy is clearly falling short. The alarming statistics speak for themselves with overdose deaths in B.C. skyrocketing from around 200 per year in the early 2000s to over 2,500 in 2023. This troubling trend suggests harm reduction alone is not sufficient to address the growing opioid crisis. Despite the extensive implementation of harm reduction policies, the continued rise in overdose deaths indicates these measures may not adequately tackle the root causes of addiction or provide a clear path to recovery. The absolute failure of the so-called ‘safe ...

Prohibiting drug users from shooting up in public places where children may be present is nearly the definition of a reasonable limit . . . . . . . . The second question raised by Hinkson’s ruling is where we go from here. The province can relitigate the matter, though that means another trip to Hinkson’s court. If the government loses there, it can once again approach the appeal court. Whichever party loses at either of these venues would then likely take the issue up with the Supreme Court of Canada . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

Harm-reduction activists portray “safer supply” as an innovative addiction strategy, but it’s actually a stale and discredited concept. Both Sweden and the United Kingdom experimented with it roughly 60 years ago and saw catastrophic results, yet thanks to the incompetence of our political leaders, history is repeating itself in Canada today. Safer supply refers to the practice of distributing free addictive drugs, typically through prescription, as an alternative to illicit substances. Proponents claim that this reduces overdoses and deaths, but my reporting over the past year has shown that these drugs are regularly resold on the black market and are causing new people to develop addictions, including youth . . . . CLICK HERE for the full commentary

For almost a year, harm reduction advocates and their allies in the Liberal government assured the public that Canada’s “safer supply” experiment was going splendidly. They insisted, often quite aggressively, that giving out free drugs to keep addicts safe is an “evidence-based” strategy and that any concerns raised by critics, such as the mass resale (“diversion”) of these drugs on the black market, was just “disinformation.” Well, it turns out, unsurprisingly, that they were wrong. Safer supply is demonstrably failing and it needs to be fixed, or abolished, as soon as possible . . . CLICK HERE for the full editorial comment

It’s getting harder and harder for sane harm-reduction advocates to ignore the intolerable unintended consequences of “safer supply” programs — i.e., prescribing opioid addicts pharmaceutical-grade drugs to prevent them from overdosing on street drugs of unknown strength and content. Unfortunately for sane harm-reduction advocates, far too many of their zealot colleagues are more than willing to bury their heads in the sand. Some have attacked National Post columnist Adam Zivo, whose reporting has exposed how many “safer supply” prescriptions wind up being sold on the street to fund users’ fentanyl habits — the so-called “diversion” problem — as an outright fantasist, even as more and more addictions specialists voice their concerns on the record .... CLICK HERE for the full story

Over the summer, I visited Nanaimo, British Columbia, to investigate a local “safer supply” clinic which several contacts had warned me about. I discovered a hotbed of criminality and violence that starkly contradicted the narratives currently peddled by Canada’s harm reduction activists. Safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free pharmaceutical alternatives to potentially-tainted illicit substances. In Canada, that typically means doling out large volumes of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin, to mitigate consumption of street fentanyl. There is significant evidence that these programs are being widely abused and that recipients regularly sell (“divert”) most of their hydromorphone onto the black market. Yet the federal and B.C. governments, which are politically invested in safer supply’s success, have insisted that this is not a significant issue ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Rather than creating bylaws targeting open drug use, it’s time to find ways to expand harm reduction for smoking and inhalation which is where the majority of deaths are occurring ...   ...  It’s time for the City of Kamloops to be more blunt with its messages to help protect the people who use unregulated toxic drugs in our community too. We owe it to all the families and friends of the 442 individuals who have died in Kamloops since 2017 ... CLICK HERE for the full opinion piece, published in the Armchair Mayor

  Drugs and addiction have reached a crisis level in Canada, with overdose deaths on the rise and seemingly no community immune to the problem. This is in spite of a continued expansion of “harm reduction,” a policy involving a range of interventions, from supervised drug use sites to the distribution of so-called “safe supply” of drugs. But is safe supply actually safe, and is harm reduction reducing harm?   In this edition of The Andrew Lawton Show, True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses with National Post columnist Adam Zivo, addiction psychologist Dr. Julian Somers, and addiction medicine consultant Dr. Sharon Koivu.   CLICK HERE to see / hear the video interview

Throwing up his hands in an apparent admission of defeat, Premier John Horgan has thrown a live grenade into the laps of local governments as he challenges communities to solve their own opioid drug crises. A few common elements have been present for decades in the systemic failure to deal effectively with drug addiction, alcoholism and the mental illnesses associated with homelessness. Bureaucratic incompetence, political ignorance and a lack of an official will to actually do something useful and acceptable lies at the heart of it -- and we are left with an Anita's Place (Maple Ridge) in too many communities across the province. Fortunately, Anita’s Place was closed and has been replaced by a small city park. The common thread running through these tent city ghettos is the unfathomable monster of the BC Municipal Affairs and Housing bureaucracy. These well-paid sociologists and regulators are little known at the public level but their rulings and actions and control of ...