Too many people in our community live with severe addiction issues and these people cause a lot of problems for themselves and for their fellow citizens. I have had many conversations with people over the past few months and I have seen some pretty awful things with my own eyes. There are lot of opposing views about how to deal with the problem. I feel we need to reconcile these views if we are ever to be truly successful. This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a forum on Harm Reduction. Harm reductions, in the context of drugs and in my understanding, is the practice of offering people clean, safe, friendly methods and places to use the drugs to which they are addicted . That sounds strange even as I write it here, but it can be very successful in reducing the risks of drug uses to drugs users and the entire community - and it may be build trustworthy spaces where people can decide to get clean and sober.
The RCMP tells me that 90% of the property crime in Kamloops is related to drug addiction. Pretty clear that if we can help people get clean or. at least, more clean, that helps the entire community.
The question is how.
Many ideas were offered at the Harm Reduction forum - longer detox programs, better job and life skills training, more transistional housing, more affordable housing, much better school educational programs about drugs and addictions.
My contribution (hopefully a contribution) to the discussion is the idea that we need to get groups and people onside who would not normally get involved on this issue - business people, communities suffering from drug trade getting into their neighborhoods, etc. And business people and affected communities also need to put their concerns on the agenda. We need a holsitic approach from a very broad and complete range of interests. That is going to be difficult but, ultimately, I believe, a strategy that has wide community buy in will lead to solid and lasting success.