Paying attention to the right crisis

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/05/2024 (845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is a disheartening juxtaposition of two news stories that circulated recently. The first is the resurgence of “Havana Syndrome” being spoken of in credulous tones.

Havana Syndrome is essentially a conspiracy theory, contending that some nations considered to be enemies by the United States have been employing energy weapons against U.S. intelligence officials operating all over the world.

This theory was largely discredited for a variety reasons. There is the fact that no medical diagnostics have ever been able to identify any injury to the alleged victims. There is the lack of a motive, because what is actually achieved by making U.S. intelligence officials abroad dizzy? In fact, there is a complete lack of tangible evidence, up to and including the fact that the level of sophistication required for such an energy weapon to carry out some of these attacks, targeted microwave beams which can pick out individuals in crowded city centres, only exists inside science fiction novels.

Yet here we are again, with headlines again shouting that “new evidence has been found” to substantiate the theory. But there hasn’t. The new evidence essentially amounts to a report that a set of Russian spies were operating in the same area where some of the purported Havana Syndrome events took place. That’s it. American spies were in the same place as Russian spies. As if it is any surprise that the interests of two opposing intelligence apparatuses find their operatives working in the same areas. There’s no actual evidence that these Russian operatives did anything malicious at all, never mind carry out a covert assault straight out of science fiction.

So yes, the big news is that there is still no evidence that American intelligence operatives are being attacked by microwave ray guys that don’t exist. Yet apparently the U.S. government is ready to continue funnelling money into research about it. And the media is ready to pounce on any chance to further the narrative that the plight of these poor spooks is real. Everyone is ready to listen to and help them.

Which brings us to the second news story. Wab Kinew and the Manitoba NDP have announced that they will not be opening up a safe injection site for drug users this year. They are forgoing the project for now, and instead spending two million dollars on consultations with community groups about where it might be placed.

Perhaps the saddest part of this is that we should take some solace that Kinew is at least going in the right direction on the issue, as Pierre Poilievre’s looming shadow threatens to push Canada backwards to the days of sweeping drug users into the gutter, if not an early grave. But it is because of that shadow that time is of the utmost importance. Safe injection sites should just be common sense by now. We do not need to dither on this with lengthy consultations about where to put the site. You go to where the addicts already are. You don’t try to herd them to the place where the NIMBYs dictate.

But Kinew’s comments about safe supply were concerning. He claimed to want to wait for data and results before considering a safe supply program, but the results are long since in. We have been losing nearly 500 people a year in Manitoba to the toxic drug supply in recent years. If these lives mean anything, then we need to start supplying them with a clean supply of the drugs they actually want.

And we can’t just go halfway like the program in British Columbia either. The safe supply program there served only a limited number of people. And it only provided them with pharmaceuticals similar to the illicit drugs they wanted. Poilievre may be lying outright when he says the safe supply program in B.C. is responsible for incurring drug deaths, but he is correct that the program is not solving the problem. Because it did not go far enough, and in that, it has given more fuel to the people who seek to marginalize drug users by vilifying the program’s lacklustre results.

If Kinew wants data and results, he need look no further than the B.C. program. Because despite its flaws, it has helped people. But he should learn from their mistakes. He can speak to organizations like the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and hear from the people actually impacted by these policies. Because if we can credulously offer years of attention to the CIA about how they’re being attacked by unseen weapons out of Star Trek, then surely we can engage with drug users themselves about how they can be better accommodated by society.

Alex Passey is a Winnipeg author.