The Flawed Logic of Million-Dollar Fines in Drug Trafficking: A Perspective from Lived Experience
The Flawed Logic of Million-Dollar Fines in Drug Trafficking: A Perspective from Lived Experience
Watching the Saskatchewan government announce million-dollar fines for drug trafficking stirred something deep in me—shame. Not just a little, but a lot.
For years, I suffered from substance use disorder. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to become a drug addict, nor did I set out to traffic drugs. I started using, I became a victim of trafficking, and when my addiction spiraled out of control, I became the one selling—just to survive, just to keep using. And if you zoom out, you’ll see that so many people caught in the same cycle follow a similar path.
The reality is, the government will rarely catch the high-level dealers. If you understand the street hierarchy, you know that they don’t put themselves in vulnerable positions. It’s the people at the bottom—the ones addicted, the ones desperate, the ones with no options—who take the fall. They are the easiest to target, but they are also victims of the very system that is punishing them.
What people don’t understand is that, for many, drug trafficking is a street survival skill. It’s not about power or greed—it’s about getting by. It’s about putting food in your stomach when you have nowhere to live. It’s about making sure you have a place to sleep, even if that place is just a stairwell for the night. It’s about having a way to keep using because withdrawal is unbearable, and treatment feels out of reach.
People who have never lived in poverty, never been homeless, and never struggled with addiction don’t realize that selling drugs isn’t some grand criminal enterprise for most—it’s just another way to survive when all other doors are closed. That doesn’t make it right, but it does make it understandable. And if we refuse to understand it, we’ll never actually address the problem.
Harsher penalties won’t stop people from using drugs. Harsher penalties won’t stop people from selling drugs. You can’t scare someone into sobriety, and you can’t scare someone out of poverty.
Hearing that something as essential as harm reduction tools, like needles, could now be classified as weapons? Hearing that people are being threatened with fines instead of being offered real support? It makes me wonder if the government truly understands the problem they’re trying to solve. Because from where I stand, their approach isn’t just flawed—it’s harmful.
I am a proud addict in recovery. I work every day to help people find their worth, to break cycles, to choose life over self-destruction. But this news, this whole conversation—it brought back a shame I thought I had left behind. Not because I regret who I am today, but because it reminded me of how misunderstood addiction and the people suffering from it really are.
Drug trafficking isn’t just a crime—it’s a symptom of deeper issues that no amount of fines or harsher laws will ever fix. You can’t punish addiction out of existence. You can’t legislate fear into people and expect them to recover. It doesn’t work. It never has. It never will.
You Are Loved.
Chantel
Chantel Huel
Chantel Huel is a lived experience advocate who has walked the path from incarceration and addiction to leadership and change-making. With firsthand knowledge of recovery, street life, gang involvement, and the justice system, she challenges how prison administrators make decisions and navigates the barriers faced by those inside and outside the carceral system. Her journey from serving time to mentoring others in recovery has shaped her into a fierce advocate for change. Through peer mentorship and system navigation, Chantel uses her voice and experience to uplift others, proving that transformation is possible and that no one is beyond hope.
The text of this blog was first posted to Meta Facebook on February 29, 2025
