The headline regarding St. Paul’s Hospital’s overdose prevention site was accurate [free from error or defect; precise; exact. b) careful or meticulous.] when it used touts [to describe or advertise boastfully; publicize or promote;].
I lack sufficient information, and/or access to information to determine the facts regarding the claim “first overdose prevention site inside a Canadian acute-care hospital’; in particular the exact definition of what constitutes or differentiates an ‘acute-care hospital.
Experience, evidence and facts provide indisputable evidence as to the inaccuracy of the claim ‘has so far saved dozens of lives”; at least for anyone who applies critical and reflective thinking.
In fact, given the myths, illusions and other effects the misleading and misinformation arising from ‘saved lives’ and ‘overdose prevention’ create, overdose prevention sites and Naloxone not only don’t save lives, they enable the death toll resulting from the toxicity of BC’s illicit drug supply to continue mounting.
Huh?
Unless the user never uses again, all that administering Naloxone does is postpone the death to a future point in time when there is nobody present to administer naloxone or call 911.
Overdose prevention sites and Naloxone have, in effect, made using the toxic drugs of BC’s illicit drug supply into a game of Russian Roulette where some or even most of the bullets are duds.
Anyone with a large acquaintance amount people who use illicit drugs knew numerous individuals whose lives were ‘saved’ a dozen, 2 dozen, 3 dozen or more times who died when using when there was nobody to administer Naloxone or call 911.
In creating the illusion [myth, belief] that lives are being saved overdose prevention sites and Naloxone serve to allow politicians, the public and media to avoid the discomfort of thinking, understanding the true nature of addiction and doing what is necessary to save lives in fact, not the fiction of illusion.
Exacerbating the problem is the misnomer overdose, language that serves to obscure the issue and facts.
An overdose is when you take more than the normal or recommended amount of a drug.
Normal or recommended amount requires knowing the ingredients and the amount of each ingredient in the drug being used – information that does not exist for BC’s illicit drug supply. What was a non-fatal dose for a prior drug supply can be dose capable of killing the user 2 or 3 times over in their new drug supply.
The BC coroner’s service has repeatedly made it clear that it is the toxic [acting as or having the effect of a poison; a toxic drug] nature of the illicit drug supply that is killing people.
In other words people are not dying of overdose, because there is not safe dose, but are dying as a result of the poisonous nature of the illicit drug supply.
Which is why the coroner’s service reports have – over and over and over again – stated that the action that will be effective in reducing deaths in the immediate future is ensuring access to a non-toxic drug supply for users.
A safe supply not defined in political speak or in terms convenient for the government, politicians, the public and media but in terms of preventing the deaths that are occurring because the lives being lost are not considered important enough to motivate us to do what is necessary to end the deaths.
It does not matter how unpalatable we find that reality, no amount of denial or lying to ourselves will change the fact that our actions – and the actions we have failed to take – demonstrate our disregard for the lives of those dying from the toxicity of BC’s illicit drug supply.
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