I’m glad my tax dollars are going to keep these maggots alive. All you see around town are needles in parking lots and parks. How does the general public get compensated if they get contaminated by one of these needles?

Close schools, hospitals, and senior homes and open a drug house …good idea. Get the doctor off the crack pipe please.

Thank to Northern Health for looking at the possibility of a safe injection site. While I don't believe we will eradicate the drug problem, I do believe that having safe options will assist in preventing the spread of disease as well ss paraphernalia that is dumped everywhere. Maybe the next project should be having a safe disposal site for empty liquor bottles that are smashed all over our streets and playgrounds.

I guess we don't need to work anymore.Just go get our free crack pipes,do some panhandling,buy some crack,then later go down to the free injection house.Awesome,high all day with a little help from my friends(the tax payer).If people were treated like humans instead of garbage we would not have a problem.If we go back in history it is quite apparent that the "government" does not have a very good track record.

Some food for thought.. How come smokers have to smoke 3 meters away from a building. The average joe walks out of a bar drunk and gets arrested for being intoxicated. At the same time junkies are sitting in nice warm shelters doing illegal drugs with provided needles and dont have to be accountalbe for anything..Something is not right here..The priority should be getting people off drugs by holding them accountable not by catering to the habit..

I always thought this was a very stupid, moronic way to avoid the issue. This is more of bleeding heart mamby pamby nice nice that will do nothing other than help keep people addicted.
The problem is the consumption of a hazardous material the has all kinds of associated problems. The only way to cure the problem is to remove any access to the substance and prevent people from consuming it.
Not going to happen though because it is in law enforcement's best interest to have a highly visible, unsolvable social issue so they can have a purpose. If it were not for having to control substances, the law enforcement and the legislators would not be needed as much and their budgets would not be so large.

"The only way to cure the problem is to remove any access to the substance and prevent people from consuming it."

History has proven this approach to be a complete failure. It was tried in the 30s with alcohol, and it was a direct cause of organised crime. I understand that after booze was legalised again, that organised crime then went into the distribution of other, still illegal, drugs and so we got to the present situation. The suggestion above to cure the problem would only increase illegal profits by causing a rise in price.

I suggest you all re-read the new article as to why this approach has been suggested by the medical health officers. It is not to deal with the addicts at all. It is to increase the safety of non addicts, the general public, all you complainers and me.

Some food for thought.. How come smokers have to smoke 3 meters away from a building. The average joe walks out of a bar drunk and gets arrested for being intoxicated. At the same time junkies are sitting in nice warm shelters doing illegal drugs with provided needles and dont have to be accountalbe for anything..Something is not right here..The priority should be getting people off drugs by holding them accountable not by catering to the habit..

ammonra: read for content not for the lteral.

Those that do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Prohibition does not work and never will... there is plenty of historical evidence for this truth and yet several posters here either ignore it or just don't want to face facts. Alcohol is the number one drug killer in this country and world and yet these same people would NEVER agree to ban beer sales. Why? Because they are hypocrites, it is the drug THEY like.

It's way past time to try another approach and this is a start.

The cops are getting it also: www.leap.cc

The idea of a free injection site in PG kinda contradicts the work being done at Baldy Hughes. Maybe a free injection site there too? Free booze at an AA meeting? Too bad the junkies couldn't be classed as tourists with dough. Then we could welcome them with open (scar free) arms.

The people over at Leap.cc have their heads way up their a$$es.
If you legalized drugs like heroin for example you would still have a black market that finances genocide in other countries that suply the stuff. Fundamentaly this is why drugs are illegal. They finace guerilla movements that commit genocide.

Fundamentally, the reason any consumable is made illegal is because:
1. the government can not be assured a getting all the revenues (taxes)
2. The law enforcement needs a reason to exist
3. some large corporate lobbiest feels his product revenues are threatened. See Ralph Randal Hearst re: marijuana and timber fiber supply

Remember the girl that was a recovering user that wrote the article in The Citizen?? She said she would just use the free needle then repackage it and sell it to another user. I'm not convinced that safe sites do enough good to justify the cost. I don't think it decreased the number of needles laying aroung streets and parks etc.
I don't want my tax dollars to go towards enabling drug addiction in any way. I would rather have it spent on putting dealers away and getting the stuff off the market. Dealers/gangs are very bad people that should be put away to protect the public.
Also I would rather support rehab and prevention.

do away with the suppliers and I mean forever. Get caught selling they blow them away. Just butting them in jail just means that they will just learn more contacts and most will be selling again. I beleive this was done in Santiago, Chili and it kept the streets clean of drugs for quite some time.

if the problem is as serious as everyone says it is then you have to use exteme measures to combat it. If you are on welfare then you should be made to work for that welfare[clean sidewalks , ditchs ect.] Might keep some of the native population more honest and not make such a mockery of welfare wendesday which money goes more for drugs and alcohol then anywhere else.

"Should be made to work...." Ha ha ha . You can make people work if they don't want to by hiring armed guards at $21 dollars an hour with orders to shoot if no work commences? Give yer head a shake. It ain;t gonna happen. Try the correlation between the homeless in the Okanagan and bringing in foreign workers from the Caribbean and/or Mexico to pick the fruit there.

Why don't go one step further and provide the drugs for the losers to use? Would'nt that eliminate the pusher scumbags? Have your local MP hand out baggies of Horse down at the neighborhood safe injection centre/homeless shelter.
metalman.

1)The ideal step IMO is gather them up have the state " Govenment" place them in a detox program, sift through the ones that can be educated and trained and get on with it!

2)Have stiffer jail time for pushers,dealers and Gangs.

3)I think Canada needs to contract out to countries like Mexico to house these criminals

Ship them to a Mexican jail for 10 years min. Its cost effective to us the tax payers!

Time we take the hard road on crime plain and simple.

Why does my diabetic wife have to pay for her needles?

northman: Yes, of course, the people at LEAP are stupid... they have only dealt with this issue daily for years and years, right in their face. YOU?? Why don't you tell the rest of us why you're so much better informed than them, eh? There will be no black market because there will be no need for one when a person can buy the drugs for a very small percentage of the current price. Yeah, I'm going to spend $200 for a bag of pot when I can buy it for $40.. same logic holds true with any drug. Does logic every enter your thinking?

metalman: So you're as pure as the wind driven snow, don't use any drug of any kind, no beer, no Gin, no drugs of any kind? When you use the word loser... be careful. Again, facts don't seem to mean much to far too many people. If all you self rightous people posting here were really concerned about public safety you'd be screaming for alcohol to be banned. It is a FACT that alcohol is far and away the world's most deadly drug but facts never get in your way... too busy being superior to those that don't share your drug of choice.

All of you that drink alcohol and then scream for death and prison and spewing hate are nothing but HUGE HYPOCRITS... the real losers in this world.

Smoke another one kevin..