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Bad idea to oppose overdose prevention site

They are our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbours
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Bad idea to oppose overdose prevention site

All the pearl-clutchers nay-saying the opening of an overdose prevention centre/safe injection site are more than likely those same socially inept fossils who were horrified at the concept of ready access to birth control, be it condoms or pills, to sex education in schools — the “Just say No” crowd who assume that everyone will/has to conform to their rigid belief system and toe the line socially — and who wouldn’t want that?

Well, drug addicts do exist in our midst. They are our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbours, members of our extended family, and in small town areas almost no one is untouched by the scourge of drugs, and no one has all the answers to deal with it.

I have seen parents trolling the dark alleys of urban areas, searching for their daughters who just disappeared one day, for their sons who, for various reasons, couldn’t stay in school or accept the house rules, who went to the streets looking for someone to understand and who wound up on the business end of a syringe. Would anyone who cries and frets over their children really deny them a safe and clean place to use drugs?

Would you want the friends you grew up with, the ones who lost their way that are now struggling with this vicious disease, to die in some back street or dark, wooded area away from a helping hand to make sure that they don’t overdose?

There is no one right answer to the dilemma of drug use, but there is a way to help prevent further harm, and that is a safe injection site. Please don’t rage against the inevitable to the detriment of those caught up in this net of addiction.

Wendi Galczik

Duncan