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Opioid crisis needs a new approach

To naloxone or not to naloxone, that is the question!
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To the editor;

To naloxone or not to naloxone, that is the question! Sometimes this whole opioid epidemic feels so overwhelming that one feels that, like World War I or the Iran-Iraq War, it will simply end when the bodies run out. Not much one can do about it.

However, this line of thought is somewhat cynical and counterproductive. It’s along the line of the right-wingers who believe that any government money is there to give the needy rich more tax breaks – not to be wasted on Naloxone for drug addicts.

A new approach is needed for dealing with this opioid crisis.

There lies the rub! Unlike crystal meth, which can be cooked up on the kitchen stove using household chemicals, or “natural” substances like cocaine, which came at us on planes, ultra-fast speedboats or homemade submarines built by Russian engineers, fentanyl, oxycontin and all the other opioids are perfectly legal.

The first account about the use of fentanyl that started alternate thoughts on my part was Sebastian Junger’s War – an excellent account of Junger’s time at firebase Restrepo in Afghanistan.

He writes about wounded American soldiers shooting fentanyl to kill the pain while they waited for the fog to clear so a helicopter could come and carry them away. (There is also an excellent movie, Restrepo, on the same subject).

Instead of fussing about what a waste of taxpayers’ money it is, supplying Naloxone kits to save drug addicts lives, one should look at the source. Thats where it all is!

The crimes of Big Pharma are one of the best examples of the saying by John le Carre, “The problem with the end of the Cold War – the right side lost but the wrong side won.”

Dennis Peacock

Clearwater, B.C.