By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2017 All Rights Reserved.
Shame on our Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and his government.
Apparently neither they nor he have been briefed on (or worse yet, accepted) the seriousness of addictions and it's social impact upon our peoples and our tax and justice systems.
My home province of Saskatchewan currently has the worst record for impaired driving, violent crime and gangs in the country.
Our health system is buckling at it's knees. Let's just add more stress and demand to an already broken system. One where people already wait too long for needed surgeries and cannot get the service they need in a timely matter. Please.
Is the Liberal party and our Prime Minister really developing strategies and solutions to address our problems? The problems that many of our isolated areas of Canada face daily? The same problems we all face? No matter where we live, the core problem is the same. Substance abuse stems in large part from one thing. A need to feel loved, wanted and understood. When people are hurting emotionally they turn to alcohol, drugs, or other destructive addictions trying to curb their pain.
From a party that now wants to legalize marijuana, I don't believe a solution is currently possible for these and other problems any time soon.
We still glamourize liquor in all media formats. It's everywhere. Gambling as well. Then we report the trouble it has caused. It's all about ratings. Not solutions. It's about the government always finding a new source for raking in disposable income. To get what's left of your paycheck after you pay your taxes.
Does anyone see a pattern here? Let's keep finding new ways to "legally take in revenue". Who makes your laws? Your government. Isn't it time our government stops making money off of people's addictions and deal with the real issues?
It costs a lot less to help people stay away from substance use in the first place than to deal with all the nasty repercussions after they are addicted.
If our government is supposed to be run efficiently, then why not run it like a business? Would you run your business this way? We're talking about tobacco also.
Why do people lie, steal, cheat, kill, get addicted? They are unhappy. They need to learn how to live life with not just all it's ups but it's downs as well.
ISIS is in the news all the time as our common enemy. Yet we have a war going on in our own backyard in the form of gangs, mafia, the Hells Angels, organized crime, etc. A lot of it connected to substance abuse. We had prohibition where alcohol was illegal and yet now we buy it at government run outlets?
In my city of Saskatoon they built a liquor store in an area that has one of the highest crime rates of our city. How do we help an addict? Build a liquor store for them to conveniently buy their booze? Make it convenient? Then complain about the abuse that goes on and the crime in that area? That these people are uncivilized? Please.
And now our own government is going to put their own red and white patches on their jackets, legalize marijuana, and call it legal?
The Hells Angels can't go around selling marijuana, have gambling or alcohol as part of their business income. Why? Because it's illegal. Because our government doesn't profit from it tax-wise, they call it illegal. Ah, but if the government runs it, it's legal. Does anyone else not see this?
Is the fog beginning to lift? I pray it does.
When our government realized they were losing tax dollars instead of making them from tobacco use (due to the health costs of addictions, accidents, etc. exceeding the tax made from revenue), they decided casinos were a better, new, healthy way for them to rake in our disposable income. Now that they have realized gambling has created it's own set of problems (due to that addiction) they have moved on to legalizing marijuana use.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that much like drunk driving (impaired as the law puts it), stoned driving will cause similar fallout in broken families, death of loved ones, etc.
A huge underestimated as of yet cost will be had. The families that will suffer. Another organization akin to MADD will be needed. MASD (Mothers Against Stoned Driving).
Our poor police services. Already frustrated with drunk driving laws, they will now have to try to enforce stoned driving laws.
Let there be no doubt there will be a huge increase of use on our road systems and thus infractions will increase, accidents, loss of life. Is a stoned driver any safer than a drunk driver?
Are we so foolish to swallow the messages that we have to have liquor involved at every social or family event we have? "Take a trip", they feed us. Look at the wine drinking people having a supposed great time on the beach. At sports events, concerts, etc. It's lunacy! And yet we buy into it. The notion. The tragic potion! The facade. The happy people posters.
Do we need to gamble to feel powerful? That we are winners? Does anyone besides a patient in severe pain that is fighting a disease need marijuana?
Don't drink and drive is a motto we all hear. Why do we need to drink at all? What's wrong with us that we need any type of substance to have a good time? Can't we deal with reality as it is? Can we not learn to take life's ups and downs and grow from that experience into people who care not just for ourselves, but for all others as well?
And we preach quality of life? The days of inhabiting the planet stoned or drunk should surely be over by now. But yet it continues.
We call tribes in jungles uncivilized, and yet look at us and what we do to ourselves and each other. Who really are the uncivilized peoples? We shouldn't need to change our reality. We should be happy within our own skin, and not needing the influence of some foreign, unhealthy substance within our bodies to make us think we are having a good time, feel accepted or loved.
We should be building a healthy, positive, sustainable, loving future. Why is there not more good news in the world instead of sad, depressing stories of people hurting themselves and others?
What we need to do is legalize healthy living. Not marijuana or any other mind altering substance that is not medicinally needed.
We must speak up or the shame will end up being on us.
Miles Patrick Yohnke (age 54) photographs by Jenn Diehl for Ensoul Imagery. To learn more about Jenn Diehl, and to contact her, please click here: http://www.ensoulimagery.com