Injection sites column offers ‘ignorant view’ on drug debate
By Letter to the Editor on August 13, 2018.
I just received a copy of an article, entitled: “Doug Ford is dead right, injection sites are dead wrong,” written by somebody calling themselves Dr. Gifford Jones, written in The News on July 16, 2018. It is just amazing that in 2018, such an ignorant view could still have a place and a platform to be espoused on, further fueling the “debate” that has sustained the rationale for the so-called “war on drugs.” Only uneducated, hateful and self-righteous bigots, the type that have supported such movements as the Brexit in the UK, Marine Le Pen in France, Orban in Hungary, or Trump in the States could possibly still hold onto those views. Of course, they are the ones who also deny equality of the sexes, Indigenous rights or the phenomenon known as global change, or global warming. I believe in freedom of speech and the right to our opinion, but not to the facts. Please, before you allow any of the sort of lies to be published again, check out the results of the “experiment” in Portugal, that has decriminalized all drugs, since July 1, 2001! Yes, that includes heroin and cocaine! The people of Medicine Hat deserve to know the truth, as the truth will set them free. Ernest Chorabik Kelowna (The writer is an addictions counsellor in B.C.) 10-9
