Shoving a problem out of sight won’t solve it
I am a 65-year-old born local, and I have a few comments regarding Saturday’s news about the safe injection sight in Duncan.
This problem is getting worse and worse because of complacency and our inability to face a reality that is not going to change by pushing it away and hiding it from sight of the children. I have spent some time while waiting for repairs in Duncan walking the back streets and it is indeed horrendous.
I believe, however, that at some point in time the children are going to come to the realization that we as so-called responsible adults do not deserve the respect we demand of them because we never really put in the effort to solve these problems. Instead we gather together in a group to complain and give printed signs to children too young to make their own decisions just so we can further our own vested interests and hide our failures.
The level of a citizen’s responsibility to our society and the people in it remains the same regardless of the size of our family, how many children we have, where we live, or who we are. To continue to push our self-created problems in this society out of sight and onto someone else to deal with does not say much about our character.
How these people became addicts is unknown to me, but it is up to us to find out, and then find some way to pull these people out of the quicksand. Some won’t change no matter what you do or try, but if we can save even one of them it is worth any amount of time and money. We need to continue to push for decriminalization of these drugs, put production and distribution in the hands of the government and health authorities, and deal with it in a controlled fashion directed at withdrawal and the re-establishment of these people into society once cured.
No one wants to see people laid out in a back alley drooling and foaming at the mouth in the throws of a drug induced seizure, but if we don’t stand up now and figure out a way to deal with it in a logical and humane way, the children will have to, and what will the younger generations think of us then? We need federal legislation to empower health authorities to deal with these lost souls in a different matter than they are now. Housing, clean drugs, controlled doses, mental and emotional support, and instilling a feeling of self worth would be a start.
Let’s hope we are capable of bringing that to pass, but after the things I have seen in my 65 years, I have my doubts.
Lonnie Campbell
Shawnigan Lake