Cory Morgan: The Addiction Enablement Approach Is Only Fuelling Drug Abuse

Supplies of illicit drugs are handed out to drug users after a gathering to remember those who died from a suspected overdose, in Vancouver on Feb. 9, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

Commentary

Cigarette smoking was ubiquitous when I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. You saw people smoking wherever you looked. You could smoke in restaurants, on airplanes, in malls, and even in hospitals. You also couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing somebody smoking or open a magazine without seeing an ad for cigarettes.

Nearly 50 percent of Canadians smoked daily in the 1970s. It was the most prevalent addiction in the developed world. Today, that number has dropped down to a mere 12 percent and continues to drop.

So, what happened? Why did millions of Canadians finally choose to quit and why do so few choose to pick up the habit today?

What happened was we denormalized smoking and made it unpleasant to do. We made it impractical, as smokers have been chased from pretty much every indoor setting. We made it expensive with extra taxes. We made cigarettes harder to find as packages were hidden and advertising was banned. We stigmatized smokers and were relentless in reminding them of the consequences of the addiction, as packages were forced to carry images of lung cancer, yellow teeth, and people dying.

It took decades but it worked. Today, there are even discussions of ending all legal cigarette sales for people born before 2008. With so few smokers remaining, there won’t be much pushback against such an action.

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Meanwhile, we are experiencing an epidemic of addiction to opiates and methamphetamines. People are dying of overdoses at record levels while addiction levels continue to climb. Crime associated with illicit drug use is on the rise as gangs work to service the addicts and homeless addicts are filling the streets and parks with tent cities.

Rather than taking on this horrific epidemic of addiction with the tried and proven methods we developed to take on cigarette smoking, addiction enablement advocates are making it easier for addicts to obtain and consume addictive drugs.

Menthol and other flavoured cigarettes have been illegal in Canada for years, as it was determined such flavours may encourage kids to take up smoking. Meanwhile, in a high school in Alberta in December, an addiction enablement advocacy group handed out guides to students on how to smoke meth and opiates.

Some cities and towns have been restricting or banning smoking even in outdoor areas like parks. In Banff, Alberta, public smoking has been banned nearly everywhere. The rationale isn’t based on the protection of health as the smoking was done outdoors. They are banning it because they feel if kids see people smoking, it will normalize it and encourage them to smoke.

If you want to smoke methamphetamines, opiates, or inject heroin in a children’s playground, however, that has been ruled a constitutional right by a B.C. court. You can’t make this sort of thing up.

If kids are more inclined to take up smoking when they see people do it in public, doesn’t the open consumption of other drugs in playgrounds lead to the same temptation? Common sense says yes.

The drug enablement crowd is getting so bold that they have put branding on the free pipes they hand out for addicts in Toronto. Instead of warning of the dangers of opiate and meth addiction, as we do on cigarette packaging, the branding on drug paraphernalia is encouraging addicts to come on back for more.

Nobody ever thought for a second that giving free cigarettes to children would be a good way to keep them from smoking. We never considered giving free cigarettes to adults to help them quit, for that matter.

In Canada however, B.C. has plans to give “safer supplies” of free fentanyl to minors, and parents do not have the right to be informed of this. Parental rights appear to have gone out the window while the state encourages kids to consume drugs.

We know what works to discourage addiction and help recovery for addicts. We have been down this road before.

Addiction enablement advocates with the support of many government agencies are going out of their way to do the exact opposite of what works. It’s no wonder that addiction rates are skyrocketing.

There appears to be an obsession among addiction enablement advocates to try and convince people that addiction to substances like meth and fentanyl is manageable. They propagate a dangerous myth that people can sustain such addictions if only they got enough free, high-quality drug supplies to addicts along with housing. No matter how catastrophically this is failing on the West Coast, they continue to double down with their enablement ideology.

Parents need to stand up and speak out. The lunatics are running the asylum when it comes to battling addiction, and they need to be reined in.

Otherwise, we can expect to see free opiates handed out to kids at a school near you and soon. That may sound like hyperbole, but truth has already become stranger than fiction with this issue.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.