Baby Steps

Leading up to the fall 2024 provincial election, B.C. Premier David Eby acknowledged that his government's handling of the Drug Crisis had unintended negative consequences and that they “needed to do better”. He explicitly admitted that their policies "didn't have the results we wanted to see — just the opposite" and on the evening news for all British Columbians to hear, simply stated, “I was wrong”.

I thought about his apology yesterday as I sat in a room of grandparents who are now raising their grandkids. These folks had suffered what most would call the unimaginable grief of losing their children to the Drug Crisis. And now, amidst the grief, they have to wake every day, keep their emotional shit together, and care for the children left behind.

From taking in newborns who were prenatally exposed to drugs and suffered withdrawal from the moment their umbilical cords were cut…to six year olds who tell their school friends ‘Yeah, both my mom and dad are dead cause they did drugs”...to teenagers that lost their parents and kept that secret to themselves as they walked the hallways of their school, because they feared the stigma of having a “druggie” for a parent.

During the conversation, a question was asked, “How do we fix this?” and of course, we all agreed that there is not only one solution. We also agreed that we are fools if we think any government at any level is going to fix the insurmountable crisis that they have created.

The point was made about how there are dozens of politicians across this province who have been affected personally by this crisis, and they choose to remain silent. Their loved ones have died, or in some cases, they live with addiction themselves, and they sit in silence. Why? Because of the stigma around addiction? Well, welcome to our world.

We discussed how, if you watch the evening news, you will often see politicians in front of a microphone after a mass shooting or a horrific auto accident, sending condolences to the people who have lost their loved ones. In the past, we had daily COVID counts to remind us that people were dying, and we had to do our part to bring those numbers down. We had to come together and act for the greater good.

So where are the politicians now? Where is the call to arms for our loved ones? This situation has been deemed a provincial drug crisis, and the deaths of our loved ones also matter. By remaining silent, our public servants are not representing our best interests and, when they fail us, ‘We’ have to step up, have our voices heard and make right, their wrongs.

I have to say that by the end of that incredibly emotional conversation, I felt pride and a kinship with each and every human in that room. We had come together with a purpose, which was to take the first baby-steps. To advocate for those left behind and educate our communities about how, when one of us dies, there is a ripple effect and we are all touched in some way.

We know that it will take time and energy. Energy that is difficult to muster when you are grieving the traumatic loss of your loved one, but there are no other options for us. They can not have died in vain, and we will do whatever is necessary to keep their lights and legacies alive.

Healing

Together, we can create lasting change.

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