Moms Stop the Harm co-founder says safe supply has become harder to promote

And joining us now to reflect on this grim anniversary as Leslie McBain, cofounder of Moms Stop the Harm. Leslie lost her son Jordan back in 2014 from a prescription drug overdose. And we have caught up with her on Pender Island. Leslie, thank you so much for joining us, not just this year, but so many other years as well. You, you come on and you, you bring such a intimate details and and such perspective to to these anniversaries. Thank you. You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me here. So here we are, eight years in. What’s going through your mind today? Pretty much the same as every day for the last eight years. And that is why. Why are the deaths still occurring at a huge rate, an increasing rate, when we actually know some of the solutions and it’s just it’s we try not to despair and I speak for mom, stop the harm. We have lots and lots of members. We try not to despair and we try to keep moving towards. We advocate for better outcomes and that includes a regulated supply of all regulated supply of alternative drugs for people who who are using drugs. Yeah, it’s it’s a sad, it’s a sad reminder every single year, as you say, for eight years. Well, I remember our very first conversation very, very, very clearly. And that was just at the outset of of this public health emergency. And when when I say that here we are, eight years public health emergency, does this feel like an emergency still to you? It has never felt like an emergency, Gloria. It’s during these eight years, there’s been certainly coalescing of advocates coalescing of families who have lost loved ones as well as families who have loved ones struggling. We we see the emergency. It seems that all levels of government are not treating these this horrendous number of deaths as an emergency. It’s I think we’re we’re nearing 43,000 in Canada since 2016. It’s it’s amazing to me that we aren’t moving faster on this in terms of supporting people who are living and keeping them alive. Well, I mean there have been attempts by by some levels of government to move on this to to begin to address the issue. But it’s interesting to see how the tides can turn. I mean, what’s your your take on the current political climate on this issue? In this climate, drug use and people who use drugs and who are addicted are are being weaponized for their, for their addictions, for their drug use, the parties involved, there is a lot of misinformation coming out, a lot of manipulation of I would say statistics, but they’re they’re not even real statistics. So there’s there’s certainly a politicization of the problem and I see that the people who are speaking for the different parties are very much speaking for treatment and detox recovery beds and recovery centers, which is fine, which is great. We need all of those things. But nobody’s really talking about the seven people per day that are dying in BC every single day as we speak even. And I think you know, that is really the most frustrating thing for all of us to to see the deaths continue because of the very, very toxic St. Supply, and not enough being done to mitigate that to have people be able to interact with a safer, regulated alternative.