Is cracking down on public drug use the right answer?
Sept 29/25
Yes, of course. What do we have laws for if we are not willing to enforce them? Our government has seen fit to open the country and its people to more freedom for the legal use of drugs. The drug lords’ profit and the people suffer the indignity of becoming addicted, while the rest of us have to watch these unfortunate souls suffer in public. As long as drugs are legal, this problem is going to be with us and it will grow as we encourage their use by legalizing them. The answer seems to be a difficult one as long as we are led by well-meaning public servants and the media. These folk have more empathy for the problem users than they do for the public at large. As professor Scott Neufeld states in his article in the Welland Tribune. The new police policy is problematic with a stigma and prejudice toward these drug addicts. He states that we should not have distain toward addicted drug users and almost all attempts to take them off their addiction could cause them to be stigmatized and make them less safe. This of course would drive them to more ways to feed their habit and that would probably be theft. That would make society on the whole, less safe.
Enough from these psychology experts that seem to think if the words in their statements have enough letters they will be taken seriously. The obvious solution is to elect a government that has common sense and is willing to return to the good old days when drugs were illegal and those selling and using are dealt with in an appropriate manner. Sellers and importers will be put in jail and unfortunate users will be institutionalized until they are cured. Fewer vagrants pleading for handouts. Dangerous needles cluttering the landscape will be a thing of the past. Tent cities cluttering the public places in our towns and cities will not be tolerated. This will not be a police state; it will be a society dealing with people who do not respect themselves and the world around them. Pride in these communities that were devastated by drugs and their users will recover and life will be a little more civilized.
Addiction is horrible and many of us have one sort or other addictions to deal with. When your addiction spills over and affects others, you must bring it under control. When it is drugs or alcohol or the desire to hurt yourself or others, help from society may be the only answer and if required, should be. There are few reasons we would look to Russia for inspiration but they do not tolerate drug use and the public will hardly ever see what we tolerate in our Western society towns and cities. We have become hardened to it and pass it off as being normal. It is not normal and should be dealt with.
Canada today is not what we old farts were born into. Slow changes in our morals and sensitivities all of a sudden are upon us and it is not a pleasant sight. Five generations have been a part of my world since my arrival on this planet. They have been slowly desensitized and are not aware that this is not a normal world any more. We must change or our existence will be threatened. When you see rot forming in your food, you immediately cut it out. Surgery is plain to see and we as a cultured community, we need to do some surgery.
Paul D. Scott rantingsandraves.com
​