A new day breaks and a new year begins. Happy New Year or as our Spanish friends say Feliz Año Nuevo. I'm personally glad to see an end to 2016. The Vancouver Province wrote an article claiming for many 2016 was the worst year ever. In Alberta there was the Fort McMurray fire and the drop in oil prices which rolled back the oil industry there. We even heard reverse rags to riches stories of former Alberta oil sands workers ending up drug addicted and homeless in the DTES. God only knows how many of them ended up dead from fentanyl. So for many this was a bad year but as always, the future looks bright. Well at least brighter than it was for many.
The first thing we need to ask ourselves is what on earth would attract someone living an affluent life in Alberta to the DTES - the depths of hell itself. Perhaps I was right after all. Perhaps our attempts at harm reduction have had the opposite effect and in reality have become harm promotion. Opening up a lethal injection site where everyone knows drug dealers are allowed to sell drugs without being arrested has attracted and created drug addicts from across the country. This needs to change. If we genuinely have an ounce of compassion and a glimmer of a social conscience this needs to change. Justice will not sleep forever.
So let's stop the spread of the fentanyl bubonic plague by confronting the ruthless drug dealers on the Surrey Strip. Let's highlight that and focus on that so we can quarantine the problem and stop it from spreading across the country like it currently is. To do this we need to outflank the problem from both ends. Long term treatment is needed not Surrey flop houses and we need to arrest the drug dealers selling fentanyl laced drugs outside needle exchanges and lethal injection sites.
Just because the devil's advocates have created these cease pools of corruption, that does not mean they have the right to change the law without public consent. The Public needs to force City Hall and the police to do their job and arrest the drug dealers creating this epidemic. If they won't do that we need to take the matter to the courts like Lisa Dudley's parents. The right to life and security of person is a Charter Right that is currently being exploited by drug dealers and pharmaceutical pimps alike. Stop the greed. People need homes not drugs. Let's confront the problem and freeze it like Dr Colin Mangham sugested and stop it from spreading across the country. Peace. Not as the world thinks of it but as the master knows it. Freeze Frame.
This is the year Hell freezes over in Metro Vancouver.
"The first thing we need to ask ourselves is what on earth would attract someone living an affluent life in Alberta to the DTES - the depths of hell itself. Perhaps I was right after all. Perhaps our attempts at harm reduction have had the opposite effect and in reality have become harm promotion."
ReplyDeleteThere's no perhaps. This was happening 20 years ago with weed, coke and heroin. Talking with a friend in another province, I inquired about a mutual acquaintance from "back in the day" and was told he'd turned into a crack head and when he wore out his welcome in that town he'd moved to Vancouver to further his new career. Hippie types and others who's lives revolved around smoking weed, same thing, virtually impossible to get arrested for pot in Vancouver and warm weather to boot, why stay in the Maritime's or the Prairie's?
As far as Ft. Mac goes, that place has been awash in drugs for years, but when oil prices drop and they lay people off because they are cutting back production, no one without a job can afford to stay there. Vancouver, with relatively warm winter weather and easy availability of the drugs they've become accustomed to being able to afford is an obvious choice. Mecca for junkies....
Mecca for junkies. Exactly. Harm reduction has become harm promotion. It encourages addicts to come here. Just think how long the line up will be for tax paid prescription heroin. It will stretch right across Canada and back again.
Deletemany left Alberta for Vancouver, when they lost their jobs. They found they couldn't find jobs which paid all that well and no places to live. that left them on the DTES. from there add a little depression from having no money and no place to live give them an offer of a drug and viola new addict.
ReplyDeleteHad those laid off workers come to Vancouver and found a half decent place to live, they might not have wound up on the DTES, etc.
I am in favour of harm reduction. However we also need real medical treatment available and that is not going to happen in this province. Premier Christy Clark and her b..c. lieberals are ever so proud they have a $2B surplus, but you can bet they won't spend a nickel to save one person from the fent. crisis.
We know there needs to be detox and rehab on demand in hospitals or some adequate MEDICAL FACILITY. with after care. That isn't going to happen.
When the federal government was negotiating with the provinces on health care funding, they all turned it down. Then on further reflection some Maritime provinces accepted. I would suggest our premier and others don't want to accept the deal because it involves using the money for MENTAL HEALTH and keeping SENIORS IN THEIR HOMES. Provincial politicians don't want to do that. They want to be able to spend it where they want and how they want. If this province had adequate mental health facilities we might not have so many dead people. they might be taking fewer drugs. But Christy doesn't care. If she did we would have had at least a 100 new hospital beds for youth who want to detox/rehab/get help for mental illness.
As to arresting dealers, AGREED Although I'm in favour of harm reduction and that includes giving the addict their drugs at a clinic. the dealers, I'd be arresting and taking their product and cash and even if it was a "catch and release" program it might cause fewer to go into the business.
There is no point in putting them on trial, the new game rules set time limits, which this province won't be able to adhere to nor will Christy and her b.c. lieberals care to adhere to or make an effort to adhere to.
Unless memebers of the current B.C. Lieberals start dying because of fent. dont' expect to see much in the way of change or help for addicts. What is happening in B.C. must be working for some one because there aren't any real changes happening. Once the first responders start burning out, things will get very difficult in this province.
This is the exact insanity that we will be confronting on this blog this year. There is a point in arresting the drug dealers selling drugs laced with fentanyl. Your statement is proof harm reduction has turned into harm promotion. That is not where we are going on this blog this year. I support the New York model. I saw it work. I was there. That is the only compassionate cure for the brutal exploitation we are now creating with our criminal culpability in the DTES and on the Surrey Strip.
Delete"The Vancouver Province wrote an article claiming for many 2016 was the worst year ever."
ReplyDeleteI have heard this recounted in the mass media time and time again. Yet, 2016 was no worse than the year before it and may well be much better than the year after it.
It is easy to become addicted to drugs. All one has to do is listen to Fr. John Corapi's conversion story:
Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqdgY3AnDDw
Long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi0RbM1N12I
2016 was the Year of Mercy (http://www.iubilaeummisericordiae.va/content/gdm/en.html).
St. Faustina taught us following the time of Mercy comes the Day of Justice.
Why would Christ emphasize in our time a doctrine, the Divine Mercy, which has been part of the patrimony of the Faith from the beginning, as well as request new devotional and liturgical expressions of it? In His revelations to St. Faustina Jesus answers this question, connecting it to another doctrine, also sometimes little emphasized, that of His Second Coming. In the Gospel the Lord shows us that His first coming was in humility, as a Servant, to free the world from sin. Yet, He promises to return in glory to judge the world on love, as He makes clear in his discourses on the Kingdom in Matthew chapters 13 and 25. In between these Comings we have the end times or era of the Church, in which the Church ministers reconciliation to the world until the great and terrible Day of the Lord, the Day of Justice. Every Catholic should be familiar with the teaching of the Church on this matter, contained in paragraphs 668 to 679 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Only in the context of public revelation as taught by the Magisterium can we situate the words of private revelation given to Sr. Faustina.
You will prepare the world for My final coming. (Diary 429)
Speak to the world about My mercy ... It is a sign for the end times. After it will come the Day of Justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fountain of My mercy. (Diary 848)
Tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near. (Diary 965).
I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation. (Diary 1160)
Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy. (Diary 1588)
He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. (Diary 1146).
In addition to these words of Our Lord Sr. Faustina gives us the Words of the Mother of Mercy, the Blessed Virgin,
You have to speak to the world about His great mercy and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Him who will come, not as a merciful Savior, but as a just Judge. Oh how terrible is that day! Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath. The angels tremble before it. Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for granting mercy. (Diary 635).
It is clear that, like the message of Fátima, the urgency here is the urgency of the Gospel, "repent and believe." The exact timing is the Lord's. However, it is also clear that we have reached some critical phase of the end times that began with the birth of the Church. To this fact Pope John Paul II alluded at the consecration in 1981 of the Shrine of Merciful Love in Collevalenaza, Italy, when he noted the "special task" assigned to him by God "in the present situation of man, the Church and the world." In His Encyclical on the Father he urges us "to implore God's mercy for humanity in this hour of history ... to beg for it at this difficult, critical phase of the history of the Church and of the world as we approach the end of the second millennium." (Rich in Mercy 15)
[Diary, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Divine Mercy in My Soul]
People will be looking back at 2016 wishing things were as good as they were then ...
Most of that is beyond me but I will say this. Everyone has good years and bad years. Not everyone has a good year or a bad year at the same time. For the people who lost their homes in the Fort McMurray fire or lost their well paid job in the oil fields or died from fentany it was a bad year. For the seven year old girl I know that lost her mother to cancer, it ws a bad year.
DeleteYet as you say, overall it was no different than any other year. Overall the kool aid driven insanity over harm promotion breaks my heart. Yet as Charles Dickens declares there is hope on the horizon. It is the best of times or the worst of times depending on how you look at it and how you respond to it. Hopefully this is the year where we as a society make a step forward instead of keep going backwards with regards to drug exploitation.
I believe a lot of "worst year ever" comes from the overwhelmingly negative press against Trump and of all the doom and gloom scenarios they used to scare the populace into voting for Hillary. Sadly, that negative press attention was taken up in other countries.
DeleteMind you, it never should have been a part of any media coverage as they media is supposed to be unbiased.
As for what I mentioned about Mercy and Justice above, from St. Faustina, your blog has very much evolved to share a similar message. The message of mercy and forgiveness for all those who truly repent and for those who do not, justice.
Oh yes, I did see that. The ongoing anti Trump media is absurd. The media is clearly not unbiased. That whole obsession with the ridiculous Russia hacked the election story was absurd.
DeleteAh yes, the simplified version. Yes that I can understand. I'm just not into heavy doctrine. Everything has it's time and place. Mercy and forgiveness are important for the penitent. Drug dealers selling fentanyl need to be confronted.
Happy New Years again. Just wondering what you think about the Crazy Indian Brotherhood. They say they are ex gang members supporting each other, lovey dovey legit and no criminal activity. Are they a puppet club? They look stupid to me. I mean acting like bikers when they are native.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of them but don't know much about them. I had heard that they claim they aren't involved with criminal activity and I haven't seen anything yet to dispute that.
DeleteI have the same fascination with gangs but actually kind of despise them. I'd actually like to get a payday from the experience and knowledge.
DeleteI used to be a kid who needed to form a group, so I wouldn't be physically assaulted on my reserve. But as a grown man I've decided to stay away from all my childhood friends who still live the lifestyle. Then there's a Manitoba warriors clique that uses the name of my old group. Makes me kind of go insane at times from all the travelling and violence. I like the tbm but am wary of the Crazy Indian Brotherhood. Just a bit of why I am a follower of yours and fan lol
Thanks. Support groups are great but the bottom line is that we dont need to join a group to leave the life. Often having kids changes one's perspective. Spending time with kids is much more productive.
DeleteHave a good night agent K.
ReplyDelete