Re: Approach to drug addiction by UCP and Justin Wright

Dear Editor:

 In his January 17, 2024 News article MLA Justin Wright boasted that the UCP has “…introduced regulations to prevent…misguided safe supply drug policies…”. Such a vacuous, simplistic, ill-informed statement should embarrass him. It is a sad example of self-satisfied ignorance masquerading as informed policy. It also, indirectly, supports criminals who, while menacing society at large, profit from making and selling contaminated black-market drugs. For examples, note that on January 31, 2024 RCMP and Canada Border Services seized 406 kg of methamphetamine hidden in a commercial truck at a Manitoba border crossing. The street value of that seizure is $50 million, say police. Additionally, on February 7, 2024 Calgary police arrested a man for trafficking cocaine, alleging he was handing out free samples with his business cards. Does Mr. Wright honestly believe that any of the drugs mentioned above were produced under standards even remotely approaching those imposed on pharmaceuticals governed by Health Canada? Criminals in the black market drug business are happy to hear Mr. Wright and the UCP make silly statements like Mr. Wright’s, above, because it means business opportunities will still exist for those criminals, while we count bodies. 

     I agree that well-funded, professionally managed treatment and recovery programs, with enough availability, are beneficial. Why, however, do Mr. Wright and the UCP not understand that dead people don’t need treatment? If we have a vast increase in car drivers exceeding the speed limit, with resultant car crashes more numerous and severe, is the smart response to build more hospitals, graveyards, and auto body shops?

      A safe, uncontaminated drug supply, prepared, tested, produced and distributed under the same strictures as are prescription medications will end drug overdose deaths. As proof, consider that no one dies from one drink of regulated alcohol, but thousands die, each from one unregulated dirty drug dose.

     Until a safe drug supply is assured and available, safe injection sites are a beneficial stopgap. The first one in Canada opened in 2005. Now, there are a small number of them in cities across Canada. In nineteen years not one person has died in a safe injection site, thanks to the equipment, pharmaceuticals, and professional assistance available. Conservatives’ intransigence has opposed them, absolutely, since 2005.     

Yours truly, 

     Gregory R. Côté,  Irvine, Alta.