Bell: Alberta addicts, Team Kenney says no free drugs for you

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From the strange but true file. Dinger’s Believe It or Not.

First, questions.

Anybody up for some Dilaudid, some Dillies? How about Diazepam, a little Dexedrine? How about a pack of smokes, some weed and a bottle of Crown Royal?

Backers of the discredited but still existing drug sites now have another brainwave.

Hold on to your wallets.

They want taxpayer-funded drugs for addicts. Say what?

And they go to Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s top public health doc, to get them.

You’ve got to hand it to them. They give it the old college try.

But they are politically out to lunch.

Hinshaw, leading the charge on COVID-19, will take no detour from her fight-the-pandemic route. She has enough crap to deal with these days.

She will play no part in this bun fight.

Maybe the Change the Face of Addiction group writing the Dear Doctor letter to her just thought Hinshaw would be an easier mark than Premier Jason Kenney.


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Would love to be a fly on the wall seeing them try to sell the premier on their scheme. Would pay to see that.

But here we are wading through COVID-19. Under cover of this calamity, everybody under the sun seems to plead their cause.

Including the drug site crowd with their latest request.

Full disclosure.

They detest me. I do not detest them.

I just believe neighbourhoods should not be sacrificed to drug addicts. I believe people should not fear walking the streets they once considered safe. I believe individuals should not have to worry about having themselves or their property attacked.

Hardly a radical position — or heartless.

In the letter to Hinshaw, the group wants the doc to consider what they call a safer drug supply for Albertans who do drugs.

“At a time when creative solutions are needed to keep physical distance from others, it makes good sense.”

They say the government paying out for some heavy-duty drugs would make it “more feasible for people to shelter in place while being able to access the substances they need.”

In other words, addicts will be able to isolate and chase their high.

They point to B.C. where it goes on. Figures.

In B.C., addicts of all kinds who are “at risk of COVID-19 infection” can get a 23-day prescription of drugs like Dilaudid, Dexedrine and Diazepam.

For convenience, the prescription does not end on a weekend and the prescriber helps find a delivery option, as in home delivery.

There’s also provision for cannabis, booze and cigarettes.


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Back to the letter. It says physical distancing is “impractical to a demographic that has been routinely cautioned to never use alone.”

The group expects “supply chains for illicit drugs will be interrupted.”

They think prices for illegal drugs could potentially go up along with crime and there would be “a higher probability of drug toxicity.”

More contaminated drugs.

Result: more lives lost.

There’s a lot of talk of what they expect to happen and what they think could happen.

Others say they don’t have the evidence on their side.

When the letter gets into talk of “a paradigm shift” and “applying a health care lens” to addiction, the water gets pretty muddy.

They ask Hinshaw to “take into consideration how access to a safer supply of substances is a concern not only during COVID-19 but every day for vulnerable people.”

There are others who think these folks have cooked up one cockamamie concoction.

Some docs recently expressed “grave concerns” about this plan and the risk of harm to addicts and the rest of us.

The provincial government already have ways to support people in withdrawal and in treatment and even have drugs like methadone, all of it not involving the willy-nilly handing out of dope.

And how expensive would it be for the taxpayers of Alberta to assume the role of drug dealer and pick up the hefty tab?

Have no fear.

Around suppertime Tuesday, Jason Luan, Kenney’s point man on addiction, ends the mystery and restores sanity.

In fact, he lays down the law like the dad who comes home and tells the out-of-line kids to go to bed.

Luan says the Kenney government is “not entertaining any proposals using taxpayer money to buy drugs to sustain any form of addiction.”

He adds they’re “laser-focused” on helping addicts to get on the path to treatment and recovery.

“Anything less than that will not be considered by this government.”

Lights out.