Alberta in drug poisoning crisis, say activists
By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 26, 2022.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com After the announcement made by Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Mike Ellis last week, Friends of Medicare and Moms Stop the Harm groups have shared their reactions.“We think the government is ignoring the drug poisoning crisis that’s happening across our province. We think it’s a crisis, a public health crisis and needs a response that reflects that and we’re not seeing that,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director at Friends of Medicare.
The province released data late Thursday showing 176 people died in both November and December, bringing the yearly total to 1,758.
Lethbridge had the highest rate of drug poisoning deaths in those final two months, more than doubling the provincial average.
“That (stats) had been long delayed, and we saw that it was the worst year ever for fatalities by far,” said Gallaway.
He said their announcement was basically a non-announcement since he believes they are not doing enough to stop what he believes to be a drug poisoning crisis.
“You can’t tour around the province talking about recovery if people are dead, they can’t recover if they’re not alive. So we think it’s kind of a cover up in issue and are failing to respond to what is actually a crisis,” said Gallaway.
He said the government could come up with better solutions if they actually met with members of the community affected by addiction, whether that be users, family members or those servicing them.
“They might come up with better solutions than an app and asking the police for help. I don’t think that’s what anyone was asking for,” said Gallaway.
He said the real issue right now is the supply is so toxic and we need to be looking at safe supply but the government is stacked against the idea.
“The government seems bent on opposing anything that looks like harm reduction and we think that needs to change,” said Gallaway.
Moms Stop the Harm Lethbridge lead, Lori Hatfield, echoed Gallaway’s words when she said that it is devastating that Lethbridge numbers are at record highs for overdose deaths, which she believes proves the UCP government policies in the plans they are implementing are not working and the only thing that will prevent overdose deaths is harm reduction.
“Until harm reduction is incorporated, we will only see the numbers rise,” said Hatfield.
She said the problem is that drug toxicity is very high in the streets and compared it to Russian roulette for those using them, as they never know if it could potentially kill them.
Hatfield compared addiction to other diseases like diabetes and heart disease, she said that if a person has an unhealthy diet which results in diabetes they are not shamed and stigmatized for it and they are able to receive a “clean supply of insulin”.
“They don’t have to go to the street to find drugs to compensate that, like they don’t go look for insulin and get toxic supplies of insulin,” said Hatfield.
As far as those with heart conditions, she said that when they have an episode that causes them to have a heart attack, they are not disrespected and treated like garbage.
“It’s just amazing that we are in the year 2022 and people are still judged and stigmatized about addiction, when we know so much about this and we know it is a disease and we know how to treat it,” said Hatfield.
She said there are many avenues of treatment for addiction but the UCP government seems to be focusing only on one.
“In the world of harm reduction there are so many avenues out there, if a person had just used safe supply and if we had a safe supply out there people would get a regular safe dosage and they would be able to manage that, and they would be able to continue on a daily basis and be a regular person operating in society like the rest of us,” said Hatfield. Follow @APulidoHerald on Twitter 4
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