Have You Heard About 303 Candles?

A Life Of An Information Junkie

Hi Everyone,

I found this piece of paper on the ground yesterday and thought I should post a blog about it. This is what it says.

The first side of the piece of paper says,

303 Candles

for the 303 people who died by

opioid overdose in Toronto, 2017

1261 died by overdose in Ontario, 2017

3987 died by overdose in Canada 2017

That’s 11 people a day across Canada.

These are preventable deaths.

Toronto’s 8 Supervised Injection Sites (SISs) and

Overdose Prevention Sites (OPSs) Save Lives

Since the opening of SISs and OPSs in min-2017

917 overdoses were reversed.

That’s 917 lives saved.

Shutting down these services

will lead to unnecessary illness and death.

The second side says,

We are calling on the provincial government to:

Extend funding necessary to ensure that all OPS’s in Ontario can operate on a long-term basis with adequate hours, staffing and a range of services;
Reinstate the application and approval process for organizations across the province looking to open OPS’s and immmediately open ‘paused’ sites that were already approved;
Involve those with lived experience to identify and operationalize realistic, evidence-based strategies that are necessary to effectivvely address the overdose crisis, including ensuring that people have access to adequate income support, safe affordable housing, and responsive, non-judgemental and holistic healthcare;
End the war on people who use drugs by calling on the federal government to decriminalize drug use, and shift resources from criminalization to provision of health services, including rapidly developing prescription heroin and hydromorphone programs across the province.

My thoughts? I have had a number of people tell me they use drugs to numb their physical pain. I believe some of those people, yet I cannot believe all of them. IMHO there are a growing number of people who use, abuse and then become addicted to drugs to numb their emotional pain.

Life happens to all of us. Two people could have a similiar experience yet it will effect them differently. What is good for one may be bad for another. It is all in our perspective. Perhaps therapy would be better a use of tax-payers dollars. Drug use is costly and there are a lot of things to consider.

Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D