The Liberals Can't Take A Hint: The Expert Truck's A-Comin'

A few weeks ago, a study came out recommending that Toronto and Ottawa open multiple safe-injection sites, locations where drug users are provided with fresh needles (or “freshies” as I call them/just made up) and monitored by health care workers. This particular study, like the billions of studies before it, cites a truckload of public health experts describing how these sites can curb the spread of diseases like HIV, prevent overdose deaths, and reduce injections in public. And if the safety of drug users isn’t really selling you on safe-injection sites (because you have gross pudding where your heart should be), it puts less strain on our health care system not having to treat new cases of HIV/Hep C/infection/overdose/etc.

“I don’t care if people are dying, as long as it makes economic sense” - Your Dad

The current four pillars strategy (prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement) employed by most major Canadian cities is a fine approach, but it’s not enough. This type of policy needs to be dynamic. There’s no single perfect solution to dealing with addiction, only a lack of political will to consider all the solutions. But considering all the solutions are like assholes, politicians don’t have butts.

Many people seem to have a difficult time weighing evidence-based facts against their long-standing and often horribly wrong beliefs. They’ll engage in a sort of mental gymnastics just to maintain their own world view. And let’s be honest, it’s hard to admit you're wrong sometimes. But for most of us, it’s about things like which year Armageddon came out or what kind of dog is that. No one’s going to die if we’re wrong.

Denying that facts certainly isn’t a characteristic we expect from the people we elect to govern. Alas, the Ontario Liberals responded to the mounting evidence supporting safe-injection sites with a resounding “Fuck your facts!”

No, actually Health Minister Deb Matthews responded to the release of the study by saying, “We are always prepared to listen to good advice, and we make our decisions based on evidence, but experts continue to be divided on the value of the sites.” Which is just wrong. There’s very little division on this issue when it comes to public health. In fact, when the Conservative Government tried to shut down Insite, Vancouver’s safe-injection site, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Insite due mostly to the MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE proving that the site works.

RIP Rationale. Gone too soon. Survived by no one.

This is especially absurd considering everyone was just railing against the Conservatives for their refusal to heed the advice of a legion of experts opposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences in their omnibus crime bill. Among various law organizations speaking out, one attorney that actually wrote the original policy in the US was like, “Er, bad idea, guys. It doesn’t actually work.” I can’t help but think of Plato’s (what a piece of shit way to start a sentence) idea that the rulers of an ideal society should be philosophers, those who are driven by wisdom and dominated by their rational faculties to build a dope ass society. Not such a bad idea considering the circumstances, but we don’t really want some asshole that spent his graduate program absorbed in Kant’s Transcendental Idealism governing us either. We just want someone that’ll listen to advice even if it doesn’t fit with what they believe. Not so much to ask of an adult, right?

The way I see it, there are two reason why a politician/child wouldn’t take into account the evidence provided by experts: Political ideology and political sensitivity. On one hand, you have political ideology, a rigid set of ideas about the the way society should work and a loose blueprint about how to achieve it. Political ideology is mainly concerned with forms of government and economic systems, but for single issues like drug policy, no one is consulting the Wealth of Nations or Das Kapital. There are no elder scrolls of abstinence-only sex education. So politicians can’t really fall back on their political ideology as an excuse for why they’re such cowards.

On the other hand, you have political sensitivity, the concern that that if you take a stance on an issue too polarizing you’ll lose votes. Which makes sense, no one wants to lose their job, especially not in these economic times. And there are probably very few jobs out there for weak-willed white men with a history of lacking common sense, so I can understand the concern. Except, IT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB TO MAKE HARD DECISIONS. No one’s giving you the codes to a nuclear arsenal, just a voice and a chance to make a positive change in the world. If you lose your job for doing the right thing then your constituents are idiots. So be it, that’s LOLmocracy.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be better to have someone with no real world experience and an PhD in Marx’s Beard Design as a leader. It’s quite possible that they may have bigger balls than the people currently running this country.

@cameronreed