**Editors note: Graphic language warning**
A Kamloops city councillor is fired up after Interior Health’s Public Health Officer in Kamloops suggested that banning the use of illicit drugs in public spaces is a step too far.
Councillor Bill Sarai “strongly disagrees” with Dr. Carol Fenton’s comment on NL Newsday, where she called councils’ proposed bylaw a “big hammer.”
“When the Interior Health Officer is coming up and saying we’re using the hammer, I would argue that the five years I’ve been here now, they have not given us one tool, any tool, to get in front of this to help the individuals that are on our streets using,” he stated.
“After they use, whether they are smoking crack or shooting up, if you see some of these individuals, the way they are frozen and they are bent over and they are pissing and shitting in their pants… How is that okay for our business to keep addressing? How is that a hammer?”
Additionally, Sarai explains he is quite troubled by Dr.Fenton’s suggestions that the city look at expanding existing programs, such as safe consumption sites, instead of implementing a bylaw.
He says IH only offers solutions that are “enabling,” noting the drug crisis has only gotten worse over the past five years in Kamloops.
“That is where I have trouble. Every solution they come up with is to keep letting them use, and we will keep supplying them with material to use — But the aftermath or pregame is played out on our city streets, city parks, and in our playgrounds; that has to change.”
On top of that, Sarai says the health authority only offers harm reduction in Kamloops, suggesting treatment options are few and far between.
“If you look at what they’ve been preaching to us, throughout the province, especially in Kamloops was the four pillars of harm reduction: prevention, harm reduction, enforcement, and treatment. Out of the four, all we get here is harm reduction,” he said.
“These plans that they’ve brought forward of the allowing 2.5 grams and all these four pillars, it all started in Downtown Eastside. We are not Downtown Eastside and nor do we want to become one. If we continue on the path of hearing this type of pushback that we’re using the hammer, we’re going to become Downtown Eastside.”
Sarai says if the health authority and the Ministry of Health decides to push back the bylaw, he will demand a solution.
“For the hammer thing, it’s not a hammer. Dr. Fenton, come to the table and show us what you would do to help our situations on our street, not criticize what we’re trying to do to help our community.”
Sarai calls on Interior Health to come to the table to help address the issue with people on the streets – instead of leaving it to local businesses to deal with.