Letters, Nov. 14

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This article was published 14/11/2023 (1036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mental health journeys complex

In a letter to the editor, Sandra Caplan recognizes two critical factors for persons experiencing mental health challenges: medication and support networks.

Taking your medication properly sounds like such an easy thing… but it assumes the person has found a doctor who has the expertise to correctly diagnose and that doctor prescribed the correct medication.

It assumes that that doctor is conscientious about following up and ensuring the medication is working properly and identifying side effects.

For so many people, the diagnoses is incorrect, the prescription has left them feeling worse than before, and then, after a few tries and desperately trying to get it right, they give up.

Caplan also recognizes the critical support of a network around you. Finding people to help you with the system. Finding people who do not think it is just a matter of “pull up your socks and get on with it”. Finding an employer who understands and does not just fire you. Finding those people who do not blame you but who support you and make an effort to see the world through your eyes.

The mental health journey is so complicated and so personal.

If only it was a matter of taking the right pill and getting on with it.

Val Kellberg

Winnipeg

Not all drug deaths about addiction

Re: Everyone deserves safety (Editorial, Nov. 10)

As someone who worked in the field of substance use and addiction for decades — spending the last five years of my career educating thousands of healthcare professionals, social service providers, law enforcement and the general public about fentanyl, carfentanil and methamphetamine — I was greatly heartened by Friday’s editorial supporting supervised consumption sites.

There is one misconception contained in the editorial that needs to be addressed: namely that each of the people who died from an overdose “suffered in the throes of a terrible disease called addiction.” This is simply not true.

While I understand the thinking that leads to such a conclusion, it is potentially disastrous as it reinforces the belief held by far too many that “drug overdose can’t happen to ME… I’m not addicted.”

Many, if not most, of the 418 deaths in 2022 resulting from drug use were drug poisonings. You cannot overdose — that is, take too much of a drug — if you are not aware the drug is present. Our toxic, deliberately contaminated drug supply makes this a terrible reality.

By focusing on addiction, we consistently miss the point that the most significant threat is a poisoned drug supply. The sad truth is that some of those losses were people who had no history of addiction, possibly no prior drug use, and no idea of what they were actually taking.

Every death resulting from the toxic drug supply is a tragedy… and every one is preventable.

Sheri Fandrey

Winnipeg

Toxic drugs killing a generation

Thank you for your editorial that takes serious note of the number of deaths (418 in 2022!) of so many young people, deaths due to toxic drugs that are poisoning and killing a generation.

Thank you for bringing much needed attention to what is the meaning of a supervised consumption site and how it can provide hope and a road to recovery.

My son died due to fentanyl poisoning. He was never dirty and did not need to get clean; he needed compassion and health care and neither were available for him. He died alone, I believe, due to stigma and the shame of his substance use. He was not an addict, but was a person who used drugs. He had an addiction.

Language is an important part of showing compassion and reducing stigma. If we start by changing the way we speak about addiction, perhaps behavioural changes will follow and we can shine a ray of light into those dark corners of shame.

Christine Dobbs

Member, Moms Stop the Harm

Winnipeg

Human rights can’t be up to vote

Re: Supreme Court decision deserves response (Think Tank, Nov. 10)

Royce Koop’s column arguing for the importance of the notwithstanding clause illustrates what is wrong with the notwithstanding clause.

In this case, Koop suggests that the disgust “regular Canadians” feel for a specific category of people is sufficient reason to overrule their constitutional rights. It’s not hard to think of ways this kind of thinking could be dangerous: Koop provides an example himself — Scott Moe using the notwithstanding clause to shill for votes among those so disturbed by gender fluidity that they do not feel young people should be allowed to choose their own name.

It’s disturbing that a professor of political studies like Koop doesn’t understand that human rights are — literally — meaningless if their interpretation is left to majority vote.

That’s the point.

Duncan Thornton

Winnipeg

Time for hard push on climate

While disappointing that the NDP has seemingly been diverted from the environmental movement’s human-caused climate change campaign, it may be too early to exclaim that the sky is falling. It wasn’t a primary plank in their platform and so we can hope they will come back to it later.

I think this because I brought it up when the local candidate came to my door during the election.

Her main talking points were health care and economic affordability, just like the provincial party’s platform stated. She said in response to my climate change question that climate change was indeed a concern of theirs, just not their top one.

If it had been a top priority, one has to wonder if they would have been so easily elected, since the climate change topic still doesn’t resonate with Manitobans, or Canadians, as urgently as some of us would hope or expect.

This is shown by the difficulties the federal Liberals are currently having with their carbon tax initiative, and their climate change program generally. And since they’ve been in power seven years, the normal life expectancy of a government, the chances of climate change remaining at the forefront of the national debate may have to wait for at least the first four year term of the projected new Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre.

So we have to turn our hopes for a climate change torch bearer to Manitoba and our new NDP government. But this will take time. First they had to get elected with a platform and lineup acceptable to the Manitoba electorate. Which they did.

Then they have to find their footing, and fast, because the opposition isn’t interested in affording them a long honeymoon, as we’ve seen already with the Conservatives’ harsh response to the new government’s seeming flip-flop on the carbon tax.

But at least they’re in there with the values that we left-wingers share, and as they learn and mature we can hope their priorities will shift from affordability, because the economy will improve like it always does, to climate change because, as we should realize if we’re paying attention, our weather is not going to improve unless we make drastic changes to our collective lifestyles and habits.

We need to hope our new government is sufficiently aware to get with the climate change program, and do our part to push them as urgently as possible in that direction.

Walter Barg

Gimli