Monday, March 14, 2005

RELAY FOR LIFE IN OROMOCTO!!!!

Also, the RELAY FOR LIFE is kicking off the 1st ever event for Oromocto this WEDNESDAY (not Thursday), March 16 at the Hazen Centre, starting at 7pm. My mom Debbie, a breast cancer survivor, has entered a family team called "Debbie's Dream Team" with me, Jeff+Cathy, Jody + Krista, my aunt Louanne+Brian, cousin Ellen and stepfather Dave.

I DON'T......

I don’t feel like writing today so therefore you readers have a break from my straight forward mouth! Here’s an opinion from two different individual of their opinion on the issue of Dilaudid and VLT’S!



Here’s one -




I would like to examine the locations that are available to help in recovery of these addictions.
I'm aware that the city of Fredericton has an addiction centre within reach of the larger portion of that city for residential recovery and also for out-patient appointments on most addictions as well as being fairly handy to most bus routes.
An area that I am familiar with would be Saint John and this is to say the least a different story.
First there is no shelter that can be used for people who have lost everything do to VLT’S/cocaine/methadone/crack/or any such addiction that completely takes all and the detox centre as we know is very limited on the amount of allowable bed rest that can be provided.
As far as out-patient appointments that has always been a major problem since it's beginning as buses are very limited to that location being 3 times a day compared to 8-10 appointments a day
depending on length then there is the problem of getting a hold of the connections to get a bus pass at the very least to get you to the westside of
the city If you can see your way through that bureaucratic mess and manage to get one.
The next step would be to hopefully be one of the lucky ones to get your appointment near the incomming or outgoing bus so you don't have
to walk the Manawagonish road for 20-25 minutes plus the 15 minute walk along Manchester Road both ways and as we all know you will most likely
not be able to afford a taxi cab if you've lost everything Now that in itself presents it's own set of problems because none of the proceeds
from VLT’S goes to transportation to this location unless again you
manage to get lucky through some other government agency.
You may be involved with that might be able to pull some strings or get past that red tape and pull off a miracle as again the government does NOT give these centres any proceeds for a badly needed shuttle bus or something to that effect.

As for the Methadone clinic? Here’s another view

Its also sad to hear that they are only taken 20 new patients for Methadone when we know that there is so many that need help.
Since these pills are highly addictive (heroin) and were only given to patients who were dying we see what changes that the government made by allowing these pills to be prescribed to people in pain.
The Oxy-Contin pills should of NEVER been allowed to be prescribed for pain because there was too much risk in doing so.
We now have the outcome of this decision and its everywhere.
Big Cities are not the only ones with this burden and it makes one wonder why the government had allowed these legal heroin pills to be prescribed by Doctors that had no or very little training on Narcotics.
This was the verdict of the Robert Mailman inquiry and that was a shock to many addicts and their families to why it was allowed to ever happen this way.
We have seen what these pills have done to our society in a short 10 years and how much money that Pruda Pharma and the Government has made.
The help has been very slow coming for the money that was made on them. When we think of addicts , most think of a down and out person,
who in ignorance think that its the addicts fault, we are now seeing is not always their fault because it doesn't even take a week to be addicted
to these pills for some people.
We have Grandparents, Mothers, Fathers, Sons, Daughters, injured workers, people in accidents, who are now addicts and they need the voice of the people to help them and by helping them we will be helping our society and community.
A methadone clinic must open in downtown Saint John because this is where the major problem lies.