**See my post on letter writing tips in the Feb 2007 archive**
**See my post on who's who in the cabinet from the Aug 2006 archive but be careful, the cabinet has shuffled since then**
**See my fact sheet on Insite in the Aug 2006 archive**
I've been pretty remiss about posting on this blog. My apologies.
You know what finally kicked me back into gear on this issue? The recent trite remarks by the Minister of Health, Tony Clement, that "The party is over" and the simplistic and judgemental remarks of the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper about addict's "...short, miserable lives".
These, combined with a new anti-drug policy that's long on enforcement and fire & brimstone scare tactics, and short on evidence based harms-reduction strategies that actually lead to recovery and treatment for addicts.
I find it hard to believe --despite the significant chunk of the $63.8 million allocated to treatment in the get tough on drug policy announced last week-- that the government hasn't already written off addicts' "short & miserable lives" as dead in the water.
I am deeply disturbed that the Prime Minister can write off the lives of Canadians in this manner.
There is quite an avalanche of new postings here with little or no commentary--basically the opposite of how I originally invisioned this blog.
However, it remains, I think, a good repository of relevant information so that interested people can gather the necessary information to write letters to their MP or to the editors of student, local or national newspapers about Insite in particular and harms reduction in general.
From the sounds of the Speech from the Throne last night and the reactions to it today, it sounds like Canadians will be heading to the polls sooner rather than later.
Don't let harms reduction fall away as an important health care issue.
Don't let the conservatives ignore the harms reduction & treatment pillars of the 4 pillars strategy in overwhelming favour of the enforcement & prevention pillars.
Write to your MP, ask for a balanced approach for Canada: Enforcement and Prevention, yes but in conjunction with --not to the exclusion of-- Treatment and Harms Reduction
**See my post on letter writing tips in the Feb 2007 archive**
**See my post on who's who in the cabinet from the Aug 2006 archive but be careful, the cabinet has shuffled since then**
**See my fact sheet on Insite in the Aug 2006 archive**
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Apologies, and an update (finally)
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2 comments:
I will gladly leave a comment, hopefully not the last! I too am in full support of harms reduction. We are unfortunately seeing, on both a federal and here in Ottawa, on a municipal level, an ignorant approach to addictions. Decisions being made by the Harper and O'Brien governments are made in spite of solid research that indicates that harms reduction does not increase addictions, and also helps to decrease crime.
I personally am deeply concerned that such supposedly intelligent leaders are nonetheless demonstrating an awesome ability at making idiotic decisions with no foundation in reality.
The idea that increasing jail time and punishments will serve as a crime deterrent has not been proven by any reliable studies. If the Conservatives truly wanted to reduce crime, then they would *gasp* spend more on social programs, because putting money into healthy beginnings, education, and social assistance (moving away from a shaming model of welfare), is the best way to cut down on crime.
Ok, no time to really get into it, but here here! (Hear hear?!) What ev, I agree with you ladies. I loath Harper and his cronies who live in a world where people who are on the "fringes of society" don't really count as people, and are often the last to be considered when developing programs and dividing spending. But, when has the gov't ever really been proactive? It's sad, and it sucks, and that's why it's so important to vote, to write letters to your MP or whomever, and get the word out!
I wish I had more time today so that I could continue to rant for a while.
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