Ashligh Gough could have been saved…
On November 5th, 2011, a man was found passed-out, overdosed, in one of Occupy Vancouver’s tented areas- that’s how we learned there was bad heroin in town. One would think, with a recent near death in the camp, that we’d have been flooded with people from the city and harm reduction services offering to help- you’d be wrong though, what I learned the next day is that learned Vancouver’s harm reduction services are a deadly (bad) joke.
Despite multiple attempts to contact mayor Gregor Robertson’s office, and half a day trying to organize outreach services, we only got two things the next day- supplies for taking hard drugs, and the death of a vibrant young woman. Ashleigh Gough’s body was discovered in one of the dents in the middle of a D.O.A. concert. It was just a few minutes after Hollyhock (and alleged Greenpeace) co-founder and Pulitzer cheat Rex Weyler wrongly proclaimed her death was unrelated to the camp (it was unlikely she’d have been alone in a tent otherwise).
One would think, three years later, that the city would have come up with a new tactic for dealing with the problem by now- but nothing has visibly changed. Vancouver Police announced a “rash” of overdoses from bad heroin this week- and at least one more dead body. The situation has got to the point where we’re sacrificing the Ashleigh Gough’s of the world- with an election on, there’s no better time to re-evaluate and look for better solutions.
Time to Start Arresting Dealers!
We already established protests for when food factories are discovered distributing deadly products- we take them off of the market posthaste. So, when’s the last time we heard Vancouver Police responding by rounding up the dealers? The answer appears to be never- Toronto takes bad drug incidents seriously, there’s no excuse for Vancouver not to.
There’s no better time to start than now, Vancouver’s Status Quo is An Act of Murder.
