Front page of today's Vancouver Province was an article about how Surrey is bracing for more fentanyl overdoses because it's welfare Wednesday and everyone is going to spend their welfare cheques on Crack or Heroin and end up with some crack tainted with fentanyl. Can we not see what's wrong with this picture? It's just another way we are directly contributing to the gang war. Anciently, welfare Wednesday was a zoo in the DTES. People would get drunk, pass out and end up getting robbed of the rest of the months welfare cheque then be destitute for the rest of the month. an insane cycle of exploitation that continues to this day. So why are we enabling it?
In the DTES you can see line ups of people buying drugs after they cashed their welfare cheque. It's pretty easy to arrest the one at the front of the line selling the drugs. So why don't we? Especially now that we know those drug dealers are selling crack laced with fentanyl. Not arresting them makes us criminally culpable. Perhaps a portion of welfare cheques should be distributed as food vouchers instead of crack vouchers. That would be in everyone's best interest.
Study to evaluate effect of welfare cheque distribution on drug use
This is not social justice.
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