by Basics Kitchener-Waterloo

The increase of fatal overdoses in Kitchener has forced the local health department to declare a heroin epidemic. Despite this, little has been done to deal with this problem. While more people are getting hooked on this dangerous drug, treatment centres and methadone clinics are forced to turn people away due to lack of funding.

“The wait list to get into a methadone clinic is about two years, and getting into rehab is harder and harder” says community activist Ryan Moore. “At the same time there are more drugs on our streets and people are dropping like flies.”

“Everyone in the downtown community has been affected by this directly or indirectly, and when friends come to me for help to get off of drugs, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere that I can send them, its heartbreaking,” says Jason Lamka, a native activist. “I think the system uses it as a tool to keep poor people down, this is a game to the rich people, who spend millions on the new courthouse and their salaries but they have no money to put into programs we desperately need.”

One point of contention is the role of the Oxycontin ban in this increase of overdoses. Michael, an activist concerned about drug addiction, stated that: “For many people who are sick, the tightening of narcotics prescriptions will just force them to go somewhere else. If people are sick or going through withdrawal they will purchase heroin as the only opiate available. These are powerful drugs that doctors are prescribing and just to cut people off is irresponsible.”

The banning of Oxycontin is simplistic according to Lamka. “Poeple are dying anyways, and its not because they can’t get Oxy. Our society creates a depression and people are getting high to escape it. There’s no jobs, no hope, and no future for many people. Until this is solved, people will get high, and more and more people will die.”

When asked about this, Regional Councillors Ken Sealing and Karl Zehr, who decide how money is spent, declined to comment.

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