The drug issue in Canada has become so bad the headline’ Canada is Dying’ has resonance. As they desperately try to save their Country, we need to learn and act before the Canadian experience is repeated here.

The CAA has been trying to convince those who make decisions on the drug issue their directions are wrong with little success. As frustrating as this may be, sometimes you are exposed to the effort of others, which reinvigorates. Their experiences and successes confirm that we are on the right path, and the popular theory of ‘Harm Minimisation’, or more accurately, the ‘Drug Facilitation’ strategy, is badly flawed, having been hijacked by the pro-drug lobby.

The ‘Harm Minimisation’ pro-drug lobby will loudly and forcefully defend the strategy, and they have led governments both here and overseas in this failed direction, with many jurisdictions trying to walk back from this concept as the drug issue grows beyond control and the death toll and the suffering of addicts escalates at an alarming rate. Not to mention community harm, which grows expediently with the explosion of addicts.

This heightened problem with drugs is directly attributable to this misused ‘Harm Minimisation’ strategy, with its centrepiece being Drug Injecting Rooms.

Bringing about a change to the three pillars strategy, Education/prevention, Law enforcement and Treatment, is not going to be easy because the Pro Drug lobby is well organised and viciously vocal.

The illicit drug industry is the only beneficiary of the continuing strategy of ‘Harm Minimisation as it is currently applied. How facilitating drug use in Injecting Rooms is ‘Harm Minimisation’ is a mystery.

There are possibly those who are genuinely convinced that the Drug rooms and the ‘Harm Minimisation’ strategy are in the best interests of addicts, but the false benefits of this approach have skewed their views.

Every time you are exposed to the screeching of proponents of ‘Harm Minimisation’ attempting to lay collective guilt on the community, those proponents are delivering the pro-drug strategies of dark forces.

There is only one way to address the problem we face: dump the current failed approach and embrace the ‘Three Pillars’ strategy, which will save lives.

We have previously looked to Canada to see the effects of the various strategies, how they evolve to deal with the market variables, and, importantly, what we can expect looking forward.

The Drug lords and Organised Crime cartel’s insatiable appetite for rivers of gold will be motivation enough as new combinations of drugs are more profitable, easier to manufacture and harder to detect.

Given the loud advocacy for the status quo, the pall of suspicion hangs over many of those pushing the failed strategy. We wonder whether the rivers of gold enjoyed by the drug Tsars have tributaries finding their way into the pockets of ‘Harm Minimisation advocates’.

Canada is currently dealing with a significant influx of Fentanyl. Combined with other drugs, like Ketamine, it can also cause other serious physical impairments, afflicting users with terrible infections, abscesses, strokes or paralysis, the horrific effects of which can sometimes require amputation and can lead to an excruciating death, hence its nickname: the zombie drug.

More than 40,000 Canadians have died from opioid overdoses since 2016. The root of this crisis lies in the proliferation of the manufactured opioid fentanyl, the culprit in more than 85 per cent of these deaths.

Fentanyl is far more powerful than many older and more familiar opioids; it is 40 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Beyond its addictive properties, fentanyl is cheap to manufacture, very hard to detect, and twice as addictive as other drugs.

A long overdue examination of whether the palatably named ‘Harm Reduction’ has morphed into its nemesis see the latest findings of Injecting Rooms efficacy. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ucp-supervised-consumption-site-review-committee-announcement-findings-1.5486579

Canadian British Columbia province Alberta has seven consumption sites, and the Government is trying to bring the three pillars into balance as the consumption sites are drug facilitation facilities without any attempt to rehabilitate or divert users. They now tend to accept that the sites are responsible for the broader use of drugs and justify their existence by questionable statistics, something that has been alleged to occur here.

An article by Canadian Susan Martinuk  https://c2cjournal.ca/2024/01/harm-reduction-is-killing-b-c-s-addicts-theres-a-better-way/ provides a balanced and insightful view on the issues being confronted.

Coincidently and interestingly, Alberta has a group, the Odd Squad, which provides guidance and advice to authorities. Unashamedly, Alberta harvests the wisdom of this group of former Police officers and others.

This group has eerily similarities to the CAA.