YOUR PERSPECTIVE: Stop the open drug use in public places, protect our families
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For many, getting behind Premier David Eby’s plan to decriminalize hard drugs came with the expectation that the proper protections, such as training and treatment, would be in place. Mothers like Andrea Miller, whose daughter Everleigh found a packet of fentanyl at her elementary school playground in Nanaimo, learned this wasn’t the case the hard way.
Decriminalizing hard drugs without proper guardrails has exposed our communities to the dangers of uncontrolled consumption in public areas. While simple activities like having a beer in a public park or using a plastic straw are tightly regulated, the government’s decriminalization policy has left the public consumption of lethal drugs like crystal meth, crack cocaine, and fentanyl unchecked.
After six years and two terms of this NDP government, the results are more crime and social disorder, a continued and tragic increase in overdose deaths, and more violence than ever before. Now, innocent children are exposed to public drug use in places that are supposed to be for kids and families to safely enjoy — it’s simply unacceptable.
Parents fear taking their young children downtown or even to school, as public safety in Premier Eby’s B.C. worsens. A recent research poll by Leger shows that concerns about public safety in our province are higher than anywhere else in Canada, and this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
