To the editor,
The recent declaration that dispensing free drugs to drug addicts is the only way the health authority offers as a solution is a glaring example of their complete failure.
Locally, Island Health keeps telling city hall they have to provide injection sites. Now, advocating for free drugs is nothing more than passing the buck and deflecting from their failure to deal with a health crisis.
Were society serious about solving this problem it would require mandatory treatment for anyone who has suffered an overdose requiring medical intervention. Someone sitting on the sidewalk playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver would be put into care immediately and not wait for them to shoot themselves and hope you can save them later.
If Island Health and our provincial health minister can’t offer a solution to this problem they need some personnel changes and put people in place that have solutions.
As to our local drug/crime issues, anyone who is drug addicted and slowly killing themselves needs to be put into mandatory treatment. Those involved with crime to feed their habit, need to be treated like criminals.
The current means of addressing the problem is not working and those responsible need to be held accountable.
Jim Taylor, Nanaimo
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