The political football keeps getting kicked
The Prince George RCMP's message vs head office
The news cycle and political point-scoring around this continues:
What continues to be notable about this is that we essentially have, whether it’s intentional or not, the Prince George RCMP detachment versus the official B.C. RCMP line. The B.C. RCMP, you’ll recall, put out a statement Monday saying there is no evidence of safer supply being widely trafficked in illegal markets but that was followed up by the Prince George RCMP Supt. Shaun Wright telling city council he thinks it’s a growing problem based on what he described as his own anectodal observations, and so that’s what opposition politicians are going with. For straight stenography, here is the full writeup of Wright’s presentation and it is worthwhile to know what he said, on the record, but worth keeping in mind he couched it as his opinion and observations rather than backed up by statistics. Anyways, there are some outstanding questions that may eventually be answered, or not, and I’m not sure how many more days of political hay this will make in the meantime.
News roundup:
If you’ve been wondering: Flags are at half mast due to the death of Brian Mulroney.
Today’s song:
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I just had a little back-and-forth with a guy on Reddit yesterday, who told me how safe supply saved his life. He has a job, he has a wife and siblings who love him. He got prescribed painkillers after a surgery and almost lost everything. And now he’s got his life back.
So frankly, 🤷♀️. I’m kind of sick of politicians trying to tell me that people aren’t worth saving.
I really wish that PG RCMP via Wright had come to the table with statistics instead of an anecdote from one person (who may very well be experiencing the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, where someone notices things once they start thinking of them - the reason I began seeing Nissan Muranos everywhere once I bought one for myself, statistically the same number of Muranos were driving the streets in town and I just happened to be paying attention to them more). And of course, news and politicians are going to cling to that statistically-unfounded anecdote instead of sharing the actual, much smaller, numbers of safe supply prescriptions being diverted to the illegal market. UGH >:(