My son is still a human being! AND HE STILL DOES NOT DESERVE TO DIE!

September 09, 2019 by Petra Schulz

A Letter to the SCS Review Board Hearing in Lethbridge AB -

Lori Hatfield, September 4, 2019

As a mother of a son struggling with addiction (going on 11 years now), I have walked the path of our broken systems alongside my son and I come with a different perspective than those suffering in the throes of addiction.

My son has at times lived at home, lived on his own, and been homeless. He has lived in Lethbridge, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Victoria, and Vancouver. My son does not want to be an addict. Some days he wins the fight, some days he does not. But he is still functional! He still loves. He still feels. He still does everything everyone else does. He is still a human being! AND HE STILL DOES NOT DESERVE TO DIE!

The Supervised Consumption Site is doing EXACTLY was it is designed to do – keep people from dying from using contaminated drugs. It also points its clientele towards available services – now if we had more services, we might be able to see some real decline in people in active addiction.

When I brought my son home from BC, we went to the SCS first thing on a Monday morning. He made contact with the Virtual Clinic and had a prescription for Suboxone later that same day. It was wonderful! Previously he would have had to wait 3 or 4 weeks for the “travelling addiction doctor” to be in town to either get a prescription or a change to his prescription. I can’t say enough about this service. For those that can’t abstain (which is not recommended by the experts anymore with regards to opiates), this service offers that window of opportunity when the desire for a change presents itself to someone suffering with addiction.

The main flaw in Lethbridge is that there is NOT enough wrap-around services for the amount of people suffering from addiction. When that window opens up where someone wants help, it can be weeks before that first step is available – the window has closed long before help is available and our vulnerable people are suffering due to these lack of services. Those proposing to stop funding to the SCS are playing God and they have no right to do so. We have the means and the know how to keep people alive – who has the right to say, “no you should die”. Which is exactly what will happen – people will DIE! DIE, DEAD, NO LONGER HERE. No chance for change, no window of opportunity. Addiction can be overcome. It does happen. It’s a very hard road to travel, but by God it happens every single day and we need to make sure that that opportunity is available every single day.

Stopping funding, thus closing the SCS is NOT going to change the needle debris in Lethbridge, it is not going to end addiction – it is only going to cause deaths. That will be the only outcome of this action. When my kids were little, we always searched the parks and playgrounds before letting our kids play – looking for broken glass and dog and cat feces. We searched then and you still need to search, only now you have to look for needles in addition to the other stuff. Yes it sucks, but it’s the way of life now in EVERY COMMUNITY – not just Lethbridge.

As far as crime goes, the SCS has been a dumping ground for blaming all that is wrong in Lethbridge. It is unfair and unwarranted. Nobody ever brings unemployment into the equation – that due to the slow down in Gas and Oil there are hundreds of people that were making very lucrative incomes and are now desperate to make ends meet – oh but they don’t commit crimes, they would never steal – its only addicts that do that.

Do you know how many people the death of one addict impacts – well there’s the mother and father, wife/husband perhaps children, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends . . . too numerous to count. Not only that, but children suffer the most from PTSD and the death of a parent. Imagine the environment of elementary, middle and high schools as these children grow-up.

I do not know what more we can do to make people realize the importance of Supervised Consumption Sites ALONG WITH ALL THE NECESSARY SERVICES that need to be available to people suffering from addiction. I do not think Lethbridge would be in this state of turmoil if we had had sufficient services put in place at the time of the opening of the SCS. There is only one reason the Supervised Consumption Site should have its funding stopped and that would be because there is safe supply and people do not need to worry about dying from using contaminated drugs.

International Overdose Awareness Day 2019 with MSTH - Coast to Coast

September 09, 2019 by Petra Schulz

Carpet Diem

July 26, 2019 by

“Where are you mum?”

This new day held so much promise as the May sun slanted through the bus window, one more stop and I would be home. I knew where Roger was. He was waiting for me. Stop the presses!

“I’m almost there.”

I rushed to the apartment and there he was waiting with his friend.

“Mum, I have a surprise. Don’t look, close your eyes. I’ll tell you when!”

It was Mothers Day, and my gift was in front of me smiling. His long black hair tied back in a ponytail showed his brown eyes framed in a sun-tanned face with an excess of shining teeth. He’d put on a few pounds and was wearing his best jeans and buttoned shirt. I could see the effort he put into his appearance and my heart melted.

He shooed me into the bedroom to wait for the unveiling. I heard the table scrape across the parquet floor. What could it be? I felt like a child at Christmas, but this was my child, now a grown lad of 28 preparing the surprise.

“You can come in now. Open your eyes.” His voice overflowed with excitement.

Roger was in the comfy seat with an expectant Cheshire grin on his face. The afternoon sun backlit the living room and there on the floor was the rug. This wasn’t any old rug; it was a magic carpet.

I whooped and cried as I threw myself onto its soft pile, crisscrossed with a harlequin pattern of sea blue and ocean foam grey.

“Roger it’s the beautiful rug I saw hanging at the Home Show!”

He laughed and joined me on the floor. I lay on my back and flung my arms ups.

“Do you like it mum?”

“Do I like it, Roger it’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

He hugged me and handed me a card,

“Open it mum.”

With an Oscar flourish I tore open the envelope. The card, pink with glittery butterflies and flowers was emblazoned with, “A Mum Grows More Precious as Time Goes By!”

Inside in Rogers’s strong childlike script he wrote:

“Mum, thank you so much for being there for me through my ups and downs. I would not still be here if not for you. I hope you like your gift and smile everyday when you see it,

I Love You, Roger xxx”

We hugged and I cried and we laughed as the sun warmed us.

I smile every day when I walk into the living room and see the rug. I smile and think of Roger. I cry too.

My heart swells thinking back to the time a month earlier when I saw Roger working at the rug booth in the Better Living Centre. He was so excited to invite me to the show, part of the Canada Blooms event. Lucy and I found the stall amid the clamour of the crowds and there I saw him. He was dressed smartly in a blue and red check shirt and dark pants. He radiated happiness. The booth was busy when I arrived and he said,

“Mum, take a look, what carpet do you like?”

I loved looking through them all, but I kept coming back to the blue and grey one. It reminded me of the Big Island of Hawaii where we once lived. It had such a vivid ocean blue colour cut with grey and a floating seaweed pattern weaved in and out.

“I like this one Roger.”

He agreed it was one of his favourite too. He was a charismatic salesman and told me all the dimensions, animated and engaged. I was so proud of him.

“In my dreams Roger, this is the one.”

He smiled.

A day like this might seem normal for some, but for us, it was transcendent. This was a miracle. The winter was thawing, and I could breathe again. This was his first job post rehab. He was in recovery.

Only 5 months earlier I had picked Roger up from downtown, destitute and scared; his disease of opioids addiction had taken him down. It was freezing rain that November morning and he had spent the night on the street pan handling in the Entertainment district. He told me later that a well-dressed man leaving a club saw him shivering on the sidewalk stoop and sat down beside him. They talked and the man reached into his pocket and gave him $10 saying

“Watch yourself brother.”

That stranger saved Roger’s life; the $10 allowed him to pay for a seat in a 24-hour Internet Café on Yonge Street. From there he logged on to a computer and messaged me.

“Mum, come get me.” It was a cry for help.

“Where are you Roger?”

Those dark days seemed so far behind us as we sat on the rug. A Mother’s day gift with such beautiful intention and a message of hope,

“Smile everyday when you see it Mum.”

I promise I will keep smiling through my tears. Roger would want that. There’s a saying I saw in Roger’s Narcotics Anonymous book,

“As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.”

The ties that bind Roger and I together are as tight as the threads in our magic carpet and they reach to heaven.

Irene Paterson