From the time the Ford government was elected in 2018, it has proven that it has no compassion for those who are marginalized. Among the measures his government has taken to prove that are the following. Reduced a Liberal government increase for welfare recipients from three per cent to one and a half percent, Cancelled project for annual basic income despite promising not to, cut funding for autistic children and much much more. So this policy is nothing new. Most people seeing people in difficulty do their best to give them a helping hand. Others kick them when they are down. The Tories under Doug Ford kick them when they are down. Ford a bully and a coward as an adolescent, has carried that trait into adulthood. So this latest move is no surprise. Truth be known he would prefer to see them dead as opposed to giving them a helping hand. Saying they will provide a medical alternative is nonsense, given the current state of the health care system under his leadership. A person needing help to get off drugs needs help today , not six - eight months down or more down the road to see a health care professional. This policy, like so many others under this government, was announced with no consultation with anyone in the field, except perhaps behind closed doors with some shady entrepreneur, like himself, wanting to privatize the treatment. Once a bandit always a bandit.
We might want to ask Ford about his own dealer days. I know so many, including my oldest and a teacher from the neighbourhood, who knew of his penchant to dealing.
These sites are required as proven by studies. What will treatment be? Centres for the rich?
The answer lies with the people who deal with the problem every day. The nurses , the doctors, those who work with the addicted on the street. The problem with the Ford government is they listen or consult with no one and all of their reactions are knee jerk and that is why we are in such a mess There is not one area of governance where we in Ontario are better off now than we were when the Ford government was first elected in 2018. Sylvia Jones was a complete dud as Solicitor General where both she and Ford were found to abdicated their responsibilities during the Freedom Convoy, and both have displayed the same ineptitude here.
Ed, my question to you is the same as my previous question, and before I ask you as I did LFKgirl let’s maintain focus, this isn’t about your thoughts on Ford or his govt, what they have done or haven’t done. This is about this article and reasonable solutions. We have tried this for more than a few years, OD deaths are going up, we have tried the money thrown at it possible solution, the fall back off all recent government. My question is you are the king of Canada or at least Ontario, tell us your solution to address the problem, not statements such as it for the medical professional to sort out, that doesn’t seem to be working so what is your suggestion. Also, How far away do you think these sites should be from schools, daycares and residential neighborhood’s?
We need democratic solutions, not Ford's for my friends' solutions - he’s the one acting like a Monarch. All People with addictions, need help to overcome the addiction and recover. They aren’t criminals, but neither can they be productive members of society unless tools are there. These people are someone's family. They should be treated with empathy not detain.
Left-of-centre columnists are getting squeezed out everywhere. And yesterday, the Toronto Star ran a Great Replacement Theory-supporting column by a former Mulroney staffer who now has a regular gig.
The thing that scared me the most was saying no more needle exchanges. That was an unbelievable mistake and hopefully at a minimum, that one will be reversed. Such a basic health care initiative. Zero logic to cut that.
Brutal decision by Ford govt that will certainly result in even more overdose deaths and more diseased needles on the streets... in the midst of a crisis not of addiction, but a crisis of a toxic supply rising over the last decade. Cheap synthetic opioids like fentanyl have dramatically increased drug cartel profiteering. The most vulnerable in our society are being decimated, esp Indigenous people.
Harm reduction- supervised injection sites and safer supply doctor care - is the only solution that saves lives under the acute pressure of a poisoned street market.
There is a reason our health care system doesn't fund addiction treatment: it's very expensive, long-term, labour intensive... and historically, the most vulnerable do not get prioritized.
How will Ontario find the resources/capacity for unprecedented numbers who need this help?
And not all opioid users are addicted. Fentanyl is also killing weekend partyers.
Ford and his Health Minister are rejecting the advice of all experts and their own public servants.
I am sickened by the increasing politicization of this public health crisis. Conservatives are vividly displaying their ignorance of science, their moralism, and their inefficiency. It always costs more to "treat" addiction than invest in measures to alleviate poverty and prevention.
There was a soc.med. joke yesterday, a photo of a big billboard saying "Illinois Democrats Legalized Marijuana". The comment above the photo: "The Republicans may not realize their 'attack ads' look like Democratic advertisements".
The divide has become that stark: one side's bragging is the other side's condemnation.
There's nothing to add to this column. The Ford plan is directly harmful with no redeeming features, based on a cruel view of morals.
Sorry to hear about TVO but here is the preverbal but, do you agree that these sites should be near schools and or day care and what distance would you advocate they should be from these. I also might have missed understood you but are you advocating for a resumption on the war on illegal drugs. This entire safe consumption sites at times policy wise seems to
Be a cat chasing their tails kind of situation. For example the provision of govt supplied opioids that are then sold by the recipients to buy a substance with much larger more dangerous outcomes. The people buying these govt supplied opioids from the people who are selling them, then become addicts themselves.
Fair concern. The reason the sites are where they are is that they're located near other services in areas where people could access them. Those areas happen to coincide with schools and child care centres. So even moving them is a tricky issue, but Ford doesn't want to move them, he wants to close them, which is why I think the government's claim that this is about kids is untrue.
There's no school or daycare near the Somerset West Community Health Centre in Ottawa. There is a playgroup in the building. I used to take my kids there. The centre is in Ottawa's Chinatown, and the local business owners have complained. Two years ago, a mentally-ill addict stabbed a Somerset West outreach worker to death on a nearby street. Ottawa has a serious addiction-mental health-homelessness problem and nothing substantial (or expensive) is being done or proposed to solve it. There are far fewer psychiatric beds in Ottawa than there were 20 years ago. Rehab and detox seem limited to methadone prescriptions. There are doctors in Ottawa who do little more than prescribe methadone and try to monitor the results. This is not a real solution.
Respectfully, the point on methadone could not be further from the truth, and it is dangerous to suggest otherwise. It is actually one of the ideal solutions. It is considered the gold standard for opioid use disorder treatment by public health practitioners. Methadone treatment *increases* the likelihood that people not only access treatment, but remain in it and stick with it longer. It is also associated with reduced crime. It is so successful that long term outcomes (6 months plus) improve regardless of the frequency of counselling that may accompany it. None of this is all or nothing. It should be paired with rehab and treatment options, which are vital and underfunded. The provincial government, despite their recent announcement, are still not adequately funding the abstinence based treatment centres they rightly advocate for (Alberta, to its credit, is at least putting their money where their mouth is on this). They promised 345 new supportive housing units. This is barely a drop in the bucket. Keeping people off drugs requires stable housing, which is necessary for obtaining employment. All of that being said, methadone treatment works, and even if it is not paired with other modalities, can have significant results.
It's so disheartening when even the BCNDP have fallen back on the incredibly modest steps they took to decriminalize some simple possession and bring in some safer supply alternatives. Unfortunately, these half measures proved predictably inadequate and have only given more ammunition to the prohibitionists who would see every person who ever uses drugs dead on the streets.
I was schooled to patience waiting 40 years for cannabis legalization; and you've got to admit the stupidity of that prohibition was really epic, really obvious lies - but the wet cardboard box finally only collapsed when the last pre-Boomer left politics, when a good 2/3rds of the electorate knew the medical truth from themselves and friends and kids.
There IS a "slippery slope". It's the one you climb to get progress on cultural changes, the one that consists of the unconscious assumptions of a whole generation. As Bohr said, you don't so much convince the previous generation, as wait for them to die off.
From the time the Ford government was elected in 2018, it has proven that it has no compassion for those who are marginalized. Among the measures his government has taken to prove that are the following. Reduced a Liberal government increase for welfare recipients from three per cent to one and a half percent, Cancelled project for annual basic income despite promising not to, cut funding for autistic children and much much more. So this policy is nothing new. Most people seeing people in difficulty do their best to give them a helping hand. Others kick them when they are down. The Tories under Doug Ford kick them when they are down. Ford a bully and a coward as an adolescent, has carried that trait into adulthood. So this latest move is no surprise. Truth be known he would prefer to see them dead as opposed to giving them a helping hand. Saying they will provide a medical alternative is nonsense, given the current state of the health care system under his leadership. A person needing help to get off drugs needs help today , not six - eight months down or more down the road to see a health care professional. This policy, like so many others under this government, was announced with no consultation with anyone in the field, except perhaps behind closed doors with some shady entrepreneur, like himself, wanting to privatize the treatment. Once a bandit always a bandit.
We might want to ask Ford about his own dealer days. I know so many, including my oldest and a teacher from the neighbourhood, who knew of his penchant to dealing.
These sites are required as proven by studies. What will treatment be? Centres for the rich?
Ok, you are Monarch for the day, we fix this whole problem how? Please. I am not being glib, what is the solutions and when do we
cross the preverbal rubicon.
The answer lies with the people who deal with the problem every day. The nurses , the doctors, those who work with the addicted on the street. The problem with the Ford government is they listen or consult with no one and all of their reactions are knee jerk and that is why we are in such a mess There is not one area of governance where we in Ontario are better off now than we were when the Ford government was first elected in 2018. Sylvia Jones was a complete dud as Solicitor General where both she and Ford were found to abdicated their responsibilities during the Freedom Convoy, and both have displayed the same ineptitude here.
Ed, my question to you is the same as my previous question, and before I ask you as I did LFKgirl let’s maintain focus, this isn’t about your thoughts on Ford or his govt, what they have done or haven’t done. This is about this article and reasonable solutions. We have tried this for more than a few years, OD deaths are going up, we have tried the money thrown at it possible solution, the fall back off all recent government. My question is you are the king of Canada or at least Ontario, tell us your solution to address the problem, not statements such as it for the medical professional to sort out, that doesn’t seem to be working so what is your suggestion. Also, How far away do you think these sites should be from schools, daycares and residential neighborhood’s?
We need democratic solutions, not Ford's for my friends' solutions - he’s the one acting like a Monarch. All People with addictions, need help to overcome the addiction and recover. They aren’t criminals, but neither can they be productive members of society unless tools are there. These people are someone's family. They should be treated with empathy not detain.
I totally agree with the sentiments you have written, but the question is, you are pulling all the puppet strings, what is the solution
TVO should not have cut your column.
Left-of-centre columnists are getting squeezed out everywhere. And yesterday, the Toronto Star ran a Great Replacement Theory-supporting column by a former Mulroney staffer who now has a regular gig.
I'm deeply frustrated by it. That said, as you intimate, look at the state of media in this country..
The thing that scared me the most was saying no more needle exchanges. That was an unbelievable mistake and hopefully at a minimum, that one will be reversed. Such a basic health care initiative. Zero logic to cut that.
Brutal decision by Ford govt that will certainly result in even more overdose deaths and more diseased needles on the streets... in the midst of a crisis not of addiction, but a crisis of a toxic supply rising over the last decade. Cheap synthetic opioids like fentanyl have dramatically increased drug cartel profiteering. The most vulnerable in our society are being decimated, esp Indigenous people.
Harm reduction- supervised injection sites and safer supply doctor care - is the only solution that saves lives under the acute pressure of a poisoned street market.
There is a reason our health care system doesn't fund addiction treatment: it's very expensive, long-term, labour intensive... and historically, the most vulnerable do not get prioritized.
How will Ontario find the resources/capacity for unprecedented numbers who need this help?
And not all opioid users are addicted. Fentanyl is also killing weekend partyers.
Ford and his Health Minister are rejecting the advice of all experts and their own public servants.
I am sickened by the increasing politicization of this public health crisis. Conservatives are vividly displaying their ignorance of science, their moralism, and their inefficiency. It always costs more to "treat" addiction than invest in measures to alleviate poverty and prevention.
Or is culling the goal?
There was a soc.med. joke yesterday, a photo of a big billboard saying "Illinois Democrats Legalized Marijuana". The comment above the photo: "The Republicans may not realize their 'attack ads' look like Democratic advertisements".
The divide has become that stark: one side's bragging is the other side's condemnation.
There's nothing to add to this column. The Ford plan is directly harmful with no redeeming features, based on a cruel view of morals.
Sorry to hear about TVO but here is the preverbal but, do you agree that these sites should be near schools and or day care and what distance would you advocate they should be from these. I also might have missed understood you but are you advocating for a resumption on the war on illegal drugs. This entire safe consumption sites at times policy wise seems to
Be a cat chasing their tails kind of situation. For example the provision of govt supplied opioids that are then sold by the recipients to buy a substance with much larger more dangerous outcomes. The people buying these govt supplied opioids from the people who are selling them, then become addicts themselves.
Fair concern. The reason the sites are where they are is that they're located near other services in areas where people could access them. Those areas happen to coincide with schools and child care centres. So even moving them is a tricky issue, but Ford doesn't want to move them, he wants to close them, which is why I think the government's claim that this is about kids is untrue.
There's no school or daycare near the Somerset West Community Health Centre in Ottawa. There is a playgroup in the building. I used to take my kids there. The centre is in Ottawa's Chinatown, and the local business owners have complained. Two years ago, a mentally-ill addict stabbed a Somerset West outreach worker to death on a nearby street. Ottawa has a serious addiction-mental health-homelessness problem and nothing substantial (or expensive) is being done or proposed to solve it. There are far fewer psychiatric beds in Ottawa than there were 20 years ago. Rehab and detox seem limited to methadone prescriptions. There are doctors in Ottawa who do little more than prescribe methadone and try to monitor the results. This is not a real solution.
Respectfully, the point on methadone could not be further from the truth, and it is dangerous to suggest otherwise. It is actually one of the ideal solutions. It is considered the gold standard for opioid use disorder treatment by public health practitioners. Methadone treatment *increases* the likelihood that people not only access treatment, but remain in it and stick with it longer. It is also associated with reduced crime. It is so successful that long term outcomes (6 months plus) improve regardless of the frequency of counselling that may accompany it. None of this is all or nothing. It should be paired with rehab and treatment options, which are vital and underfunded. The provincial government, despite their recent announcement, are still not adequately funding the abstinence based treatment centres they rightly advocate for (Alberta, to its credit, is at least putting their money where their mouth is on this). They promised 345 new supportive housing units. This is barely a drop in the bucket. Keeping people off drugs requires stable housing, which is necessary for obtaining employment. All of that being said, methadone treatment works, and even if it is not paired with other modalities, can have significant results.
(More data here: https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/medications-to-treat-opioid-addiction/efficacy-medications-opioid-use-disorder#:~:text=A%20comprehensive%20Cochrane%20review%20in,of%20infectious%20disease%2C%20and%20crime.)
It's so disheartening when even the BCNDP have fallen back on the incredibly modest steps they took to decriminalize some simple possession and bring in some safer supply alternatives. Unfortunately, these half measures proved predictably inadequate and have only given more ammunition to the prohibitionists who would see every person who ever uses drugs dead on the streets.
I was schooled to patience waiting 40 years for cannabis legalization; and you've got to admit the stupidity of that prohibition was really epic, really obvious lies - but the wet cardboard box finally only collapsed when the last pre-Boomer left politics, when a good 2/3rds of the electorate knew the medical truth from themselves and friends and kids.
There IS a "slippery slope". It's the one you climb to get progress on cultural changes, the one that consists of the unconscious assumptions of a whole generation. As Bohr said, you don't so much convince the previous generation, as wait for them to die off.