Today on the news I heard people on the street being
asked their opinions regarding a proposal, by someone in the Trudeau government,
to decriminalize all substances. Not surprising many people thought it was the
wrong move thinking it would increase and promote drug use. This is just not the
case. Our current way with dealing with drug addiction is just not working.
Treating a sick person as a criminal not only clogs up our courtrooms, costing
millions of dollars; it also doesn’t help the sick person and costs our health care
system millions as well.
Canada has to stop following the lead of our
neighbours to the south and, rather, look to our European neighbour Portugal.
Portugal has decriminalized all substances and the results have been
remarkable. The number of addicts has decreased exponentially as well as the
number of people dying from overdoses. Instead of wasting millions of dollars
prosecuting people for using illegal substances Portugal spends the money on
treating them. Canada needs to stop treating the disease of addiction in the
justice system and treat it in the health care system (i.e. – treatment). Getting
someone recovered from an addiction saves money in the long run for our health
care system rather than the current band aid solution.
One misunderstanding I heard on the radio today was
that people think decriminalization means drug dealers will not be punished.
That is not the case. Portugal does not punish the addict but does prosecute the
trafficker. Again I say, Canada needs to follow suit.
As a person in recovery there’s an Einstein quote that
is often spoken: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a
different result, is the definition of insanity. Our current system is not
working and we keep thinking it will. Recent stats have shown that the number
of organ donors have gone way up in Vancouver saving many lives. This is a
bittersweet statistic as the reason for this rise is that the majority of
donors are people who have died due to an opiate overdose.
Opiate addicts, and all the other addicts, are
hiding in the wings because we treat them like criminals rather than sick
people. I’m not saying that we let addicts off with crimes they have committed
as a result of their addiction as making amends for those crimes is part of the
recovery process. What I’m saying is that we need to go after the traffickers
not the people they are killing.
Dave the Dude
