Legalization of hard drugs would ENSURE a REVOLUTION in Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it WOULD NOT BENEFIT LIE-berals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is an article illustrating the LOW level of success our LIE-beral overlords and their poverty pimp allies are having in treating drug addicts!!
With some comments of my own in brackets):
'Terrible, terrible tragedy' at Surrey recovery home should have been preventable
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published December 5, 2019
Burned-out recovery house operated by Step by Step, on 138A Street in Surrey.
Late last month, a man in his 30s with a long history of addiction doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in the garage of a Surrey recovery house.
Two other residents went to hospital and were treated for smoke inhalation as a result of the two-alarm fire.
(We should be concerned about the staggering cost of treating addicts as well as their recidivism rate that requires repeated treatments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The B.C. Coroners Service is investigating. So is the Surrey fire department.
Self-immolation is tragedy enough. But what makes it worse is that the man’s death is directly attributable to years of appalling neglect. For two decades, B.C. failed to regulate residential addiction treatment facilities or ensure that they met even the most basic standards.
(WE need to consider that PREVENTION is probably more effective than a cure!! One only has to think of the crimes committed by addicts seeking their next fix and there is the cost of cops and court proceedings when they get arrested; and of course they need food and shelter and clothing in between fixes; and there is the cost of the “safe injection sites” and medical staff; plus the homeless shelters that always seem to be grossly over budget just to set up and costly to operate as well!!)
(Even worse- many addicts get started while young and their education and employment opportunities are wrecked - meaning they spend a life time on social assistance even after they sober up!! I know a guy who has been on Methadone for many years and he has NOTHING but his welfare cash - thus he is a one man petty crime wave- stealing gas and food and clothing to supplement his income since he has nothing left to lose but his freedom - so he is routinely out on parole!!!!!!!!!!!)
The man, who has not been officially identified, died in a government-registered treatment home where he was supposed to be monitored, supervised and helped to attain long-term recovery.
What intensifies the tragedy is that his was the third death in a year in a house run by Step by Step Recovery Society. One of the society’s five directors, Debbie Johnson, owns the house at 138A Street that was badly damaged in the fire.
Between November 2018 and March 2019, there were 65 separate breaches of the Assisted Living Registry’s regulations at the five Surrey houses that the society was operating.
Those infractions — the most recent of which were investigated in March — range from inadequate food to unqualified staff to unsafe facilities to failure to ensure residents are not a danger to themselves or others.
(All these infractions indicate that society simply cannot cope effectively with drug addicts!! It also indicates that ordinary people disagree with the LIE-beral line that addicts are victims entitled to our sympathy as we KNOW that addicts MADE THAT CHOICE to start using their drugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
(The mental condition that promotes such hard core addiction is too often UNTREATABLE and our bankrupt society is unwilling to spend the time and money to offer more comprehensive supervision to prevent such tragedies!!!!!!!!!!!!)
(Many people are more interested in prevention - by such methods as tracking the sale of chemicals that are used to produce drugs like Amphetamines and by ramping up border inspections to block shipments of drugs to Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
At the house on 138A Street where the most recent death occurred, there were 11 substantiated complaints. Only one was dealt with, according to the most recent report posted on the Assisted Living Registry’s website .
(This illustrates the hopeless circular logic of idiot LIE-berals - regular complaints should be a red flag but if such places are closed down then the poverty pimps will kick up a fuss over where the displaced addicts will end up!! And of course the usual cabal of airheads will cry that we must SAVE THE ADDICTS - even though addicts are working so very hard to kill themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
(One has to think that more effective PREVENTION would be preferable to these half assed cures!! But cops and jails cost GRAVY that LIE-berals want for themselves and for their allies so no real action is taken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The pest control people did get rid of the mice.
But, according to the report, no action had been taken to address verified complaints about safety, about untrained, unqualified staff, and about the lack of any psychosocial supports aimed at helping people attain long-term recovery.
(Such solutions cost money and NONE is available as the nation is BROKE!! Besides the poverty pimps that run these places seem to RESENT govt interference and criticism and thus they often RESIST responding honestly to complaints!! People in Toronto will be familiar with the bitter anger locals often direct at the out of control behaviour of addicts living in homeless shelters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The society voluntarily closed two of its houses earlier this year.
But of the three still on the registry, all have substantiated complaints that haven’t been dealt with. In March, nothing had been done at the houses on 78A Avenue and 97A Avenue that were deemed unsafe for the needs of residents. Verified complaints posted in February about safety and the quality and training of staff remained outstanding.
(“Unsafe for the needs of the tenants”? That is a VAGUE statement and we ought to ask what it means?? Is the place a FIRE HAZARD?? Or does it house unsupervised violence prone loons or thieves?????????????????)
The question that screams for an answer is: Why wasn’t Step by Step shut down earlier?
(LIE-berals see addicts and drug dealers and poverty pimps as a voting block to be mined for LIE-beral support - thus such “callous” shuttering of “treatment centres” is not acceptable to them!! It is better to LOOK GOOD and BUY VOTES than to be responsible to tax payers or to addicts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The legislation didn’t allow it. The Assisted Living Registry had no power to take immediate action to suspend or attach conditions to a registration.
(And local govt will NOT use zoning or fire regulations to curb stupid activities - for fear of losing votes!!!!!)
Instead, all that the registry staff could do was try to work with the operator to get them to conform.
(One has to ask if the Registry was getting any govt grants - as seems to be so common with these groups?????????)
There are dozens of other niggling questions. If this were a well-staffed facility, someone might have realized that the man was struggling before he went to the garage. If it were a well-run, supportive house, it’s unlikely he would have had access to gasoline.
(They are ADDICTS - they are ALL STRUGGLING and will do so for the rest of their lives!! And the only way to prevent such people from getting access to gasoline is to lock them up - which LIE-berals REFUSE to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
With better rules and oversight, those other two deaths at Step by Step might not have occurred either, and maybe other deaths could have been avoided over the past two decades.
(Better rules and oversight cost money that is not available - and I have had exposure to two shelters near where I live - and the fact is that one overnight supervisor CANNOT ride herd on half a dozen troubled inmates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Two decades. That’s how long B.C. went without any regulation of residential treatment centres.
That finally changed on Dec. 1 — 21 years after a previous NDP government brought in regulations only to have them scrapped in 2001 by the B.C. Liberal government that described them as too onerous.
(“Onerous to who”?? Were the regulations seen as a bother by poverty pimps?????)
The Liberals did promise new and improved rules in 2016 after a Surrey mom was killed outside a hockey arena by a resident of one of the unregulated facilities. But those rules were never enacted.
(Ah yes- LIE-beral care for the public welfare on FULL display- bury the victim and MOVE ON to more interesting subjects!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
In 2017, a coroners’ jury recommended regulations following a 20-year-old man’s overdose death in a Powell River treatment centre. Those regulations were finally released in August 2019 and operators — including Step by Step — were given three months to get ready for the changes.
In the last four days, the registrar has cancelled all five of Step by Step’s registrations. A letter has gone to the operator. And, according to the emailed response from an addictions ministry spokesperson, the operator is “expected to begin an orderly transition of current residents to other registered supportive recovery homes.”
The email also said that Surrey’s bylaw department will work with the operator to place the remaining residents to ensure that no one is left homeless as a result of the closures.
(Uh huh - and HOW will Surrey bylaw HOGS find homes for penniless addicts if there is not room at the Inn?? Landlords are often highly reluctant to rent to addicts due to the issues such tenants OFTEN bring with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
It’s a glimmer of good news. But it all happened four days too late for the unnamed man, for 21-year-old Zachary Plett, whose family will grimly mark the first anniversary of his death at Step by Step last Dec. 15. And it comes nearly 13 months after Step by Step staff took two full days to discover the body of a 35-year-old who overdosed in the house on Christmas Eve.
(I believe dying by burning would be the MOST HORRIBLE way to go - thus the guy who would set himself on fire is working with some TRULY TERRIFYING emotional troubles!! Such a person needs to be LOCKED UP - and not merely checked on in his room a couple of times per day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
“Why they had to wait to get these regulations in place is beyond me,” Zachary’s mother Maggie Plett said Thursday. “They should have been done sooner.
“It’s just a terrible, terrible tragedy.”
Recovery house regulations timeline:
(And the time line details reveal IT IS ALL ABOUT COST AND MONEY that we do not have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
1998: The NDP government brings in the first regulations under the Community Care Facilities Act.
2001: The B.C. Liberal government scrapped those regulations as part of its deregulation drive, declaring the requirements too onerous.
2014: A Surrey mother is murdered outside a hockey arena by a man living at one of the unregistered houses. At the time, Surrey alone had as many as 250 flophouses purporting to offer supportive housing for recovering addicts.
(Flophouse is such an ugly name- much better to be an “assisted living facility”!!!!!!)
2016: In the spring’s Throne Speech, B.C. Liberals promise regulations, enforcement and a public registry.
In December, Surrey council voted to require all recovery houses to have business licenses, capping the number at 55 and requiring all of them to be listed on the B.C. government’s Assisted Living Registry.
The amendments to the Community Care and Assisted Living Act were never enacted or enforced.
2018: The B.C. coroners’ review of an overdose death in a Sechelt recovery house recommended that by September 2019 there needed to be better regulations for public and private residential addiction treatment facilities, as well as heightened enforcement.
The government agreed and set up a committee to develop standards to “help ensure quality and consistency and enhance understanding of the services across the province.”
April 2019: The deadline set by the coroner for a progress report came and went, but in a letter from the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions in May, it promised to have a final report ready for September.
August 2019: Addictions Minister Judy Darcy announces that the 2016 regulations will finally be enacted along with some additional requirements on Dec. 1. To prepare for the changes, the government offered $4,000 in grants to operators licensed by the health authorities or registered by the ALR to offset staff training costs as well as an increase in per-diem rates for residents after more than a decade of having been stuck at $35.90.
(So the “solution” is more gravy- good money after bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)