We must have law and order, they say. There are more unhoused Canadians, more tent cities, more drug overdoses, more deaths, and you may have to see a homeless person on the subway, so we must get tough. Yes, this may be a complex blend of a global pandemic, a housing crisis, the underfunding and erosion of existing institutions, a toxifying drug supply, and maybe some crypto mixed in, to help move drugs around.
But we are told we must get tough, and that will solve everything. That will bring it home.
“Worst of all, crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets,” said Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s federal Conservatives, in the House of Commons last month. “Nowhere is this worse than in the opioid overdose crisis, which has expanded so dramatically in the last several years.”
Such concern, deep concern. Poilievre introduced a motion to ban safe supply of drugs, or safer supply, as some people call it, as if there can be safe supply of a narcotic in our society. That’s the kind of thing a person might say after several alcoholic drinks or maybe some cannabis, purchased at either a government-run store or a private establishment.
The bill was soundly defeated, but Poilievre keeps blaming safer supply — which is often hydromorphone, pharmaceutical-grade heroin — for increases in overdoses and crime. The actual evidence seems to indicate that is just about the opposite of what is actually happening, but who trusts actual evidence these days?
We must have law and order, they say. There are more unhoused Canadians, more tent cities, more drug overdoses, more deaths, and you may have to see a homeless person on the subway, so we must get tough. Yes, this may be a complex blend of a global pandemic, a housing crisis, the underfunding and erosion of existing institutions, a toxifying drug supply, and maybe some crypto mixed in, to help move drugs around.
But we are told we must get tough, and that will solve everything. That will bring it home.
“Worst of all, crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets,” said Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s federal Conservatives, in the House of Commons last month. “Nowhere is this worse than in the opioid overdose crisis, which has expanded so dramatically in the last several years.”
Such concern, deep concern. Poilievre introduced a motion to ban safe supply of drugs, or safer supply, as some people call it, as if there can be safe supply of a narcotic in our society. That’s the kind of thing a person might say after several alcoholic drinks or maybe some cannabis, purchased at either a government-run store or a private establishment.
The bill was soundly defeated, but Poilievre keeps blaming safer supply — which is often hydromorphone, pharmaceutical-grade heroin — for increases in overdoses and crime. The actual evidence seems to indicate that is just about the opposite of what is actually happening, but who trusts actual evidence these days?
Put the money from safe supply into rehabilitation only, Poilievre and others say. The idea of involuntary confinement has been floated. No more safe supply.
“No, safe supply isn’t killing people,” says Zoe Dodd, a community scholar at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, at Unity Health. “People are dying from the unregulated drug market. They’re dying of fentanyl and fentanyl laced with benzodiazepines and other drugs. That’s been the case for many years now.”
“It’s not about addiction and mental illness. It’s about trying to invisibilize people who are on the street, and not actually address the problem that we have in this country, which is about the unaffordability of housing, which affects everybody.
“They’re telling people to go to organized crime for your drugs instead.”
There are those who actually deal with the problem and support safer supply: frontline doctors, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the BC Centre For Disease Control, Toronto police, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Toronto Public Health, almost every Toronto mayoral candidate, Quebec’s Health Ministry, Health Canada. This is a very partial list.