Just this past Sunday, Richmond staged a protest to "destigmatize drug use," the day B.C. declared the drug crisis a public health emergency for eight years, City News reported.
Protesters claim that addicts have long been "attacked, unintelligible or brutally characterized." Some even choked up and said that because of this "stigma", addicts can only secretly take drugs, and do not dare to go to the safe injection center to use drugs openly - which hastened their deaths.
They chose to protest in Richmond because the residents of Richmond have a tough attitude towards drugs. Just a few months ago, hundreds of people marched to protest against the establishment of a safe injection site in the community.
One protester said people needed to be "educated" that they were aware that drug use was a "health problem."
"People use drugs, it's part of some people's enjoyment of life experiences, and we need to accept the fact that people are doing drugs. "Ultimately, you just need to be less mean to the community around you. ”
Drugs are the number one cause of death among young people in B.C
As of April 2016, nearly 15,000 people had died from drug poisoning in BC. Drugs are the number one cause of death in B.C. for people ages 10 to 59 compared to murder and natural death, according to the Coroner's Office.
Opioid deaths in Canada doubled between 2019 and the end of 2021, according to a new study. B.C., the province with the worst drug-related deaths, had a mortality rate of 229 per million in 2019 and had risen to 394 per million in 2020.
Of these, 1 in 4 deaths involved people between the ages of 20 and 30. More than 70% of overall deaths were male.
Drug crisis 'unsolvable' as a public health emergency
Eight years ago, on April 14, B.C. declared a public health emergency on the drug crisis. Since then, more than 14,000 people have died, most of them because of highly lethal opioids.
Yesterday, Premier David Eby said the drug crisis had had a "catastrophic impact" on families and communities. Brittany Graham, executive director of the Vancouver Drug Users Network (VANDU), said what B.C. needs is drug regulation similar to alcohol.
"In many ways, alcohol is one of the most toxic substances that people can consume, but because we provide education, we have minimum pricing standards, and we have regulations on where to buy and where to drink — these are public health measures to limit a particular substance," she said. However, we do not currently have any similar measures against drugs."
"Unless we regulate it, we're going to see more drug deaths. ”
Graham said many cities have been pushing for legislation to ban people from using drugs in public places, but that would further push addicts to the margins, pushing them to fend for themselves in certain hidden corners.
In this way, a natural contradiction arises between the health sector and the community in the vicinity of the safe injection center – the government wants to reduce the mortality rate of citizens who use dangerous drugs for the sake of the lives of all citizens, and the residents strongly oppose the presence of people who practice this abuse in front of their homes.
The "vicious circle" of drug victims
But is drug use really what the protesters call "part of enjoying life"?
To take a more extreme example, in 2013, Ethan Couch, a wealthy second-generation in the United States, was released from prison on bail after killing 4 people and seriously injuring 11 others after drug driving, and even the judge was able to send him to Newport Academy, a youth drug rehabilitation center with beautiful scenery and a resort-like scenery, on the grounds of "rich second-generation syndrome". Even if they actively engage in drugs for the sake of thrills, they can always be freed from drug dependence if they want to.
However, for those on the margins of society, it's a different story. They may be surrounded by drugs from birth. What we call "choice" may be "fantastical" for them. Their parents and brothers may be plagued by drugs and alcohol and do not have adequate access to education, and they may have grown up in communities that are rife with violence, drug trafficking and prostitution. Compared to us, their exposure to drugs is indeed much greater.
Although most of us feel "sad and angry with addicts", we can't imagine how our whole lives can be controlled by one or two small white pills, let alone agree with this "downward freedom". However, in a sense, perhaps we can have some spontaneous cognition and understanding of addicts and homeless people. At the same time, we must educate our children from an early age, thousands of them, to stay away from these things that change the trajectory of their lives.