GUEST COLUMN – We need more forums like the one held last week

By TODD MASON
Guess Columnist

SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED at last week’s community forum on drug supply and recovery. Something human and touching.

It was the first time in my eight years in Kamloops that I experienced a remarkable sense of community. Political parties, social positions and other considerations meant very little.

Everyone had the right to express their views and ideas, whatever they were. Each person who took the mic spoke facing their fellow Kamloopsians in an atmosphere of appreciation and respect.

We found common ground. I came away better informed, more appreciative of community and more engaged as a citizen.

For those who attend upcoming town hall meetings (and there will be more), I highly suggest staying around and talking with others afterward. That was when I really saw how together and caring we all are, despite our differences. It was so nice to hear and feel the optimism.

Our sense of positivity and hope (which has been absent for far, far, too long) came from the simple act of allowing people to come together in a basic town hall format.

There were no “silos” where people are broken up into smaller groups or shuffled off in isolation to static displays with a single staff person. Everyone came face to face in one hall to hear, share, ask and learn together.

We realized we don’t all have to agree on everything. The forum clearly showed how little the differences mean, and how welcoming our community is to anyone who shares their questions and point of view.

There are good ideas and bad ideas all around us. Coming together in a functioning democracy as a responsible community to discuss, debate, and encourage alternative points of view helped us sort all the ideas out. Common ground became obvious to all.

We could all agree that the current B.C. model, where people leave rehab after six weeks to be housed in isolation in shabby quarters where drugs are freely used, is defeatist and unjust.

The consensus was that long-term rehab has to be standard so recovering addicts have the time and opportunity to build life skills and a sense of belonging to a healthy community.

We all understood it’s crucial for addicted people to be able to immediately access rehab the moment they want it. As panelist Aaron Gunn, who produced two documentaries on the drug epidemic, said, “It has to be easier to get into rehab than to get your next fix.”

Almost everyone appeared to agree that it’s demeaning and unsustainable to warehouse addicted people in shabby, run-down hotels while dosing them with a “safe supply” of hydromorphine (a very strong opiate marketed under the trade name Dilaudid) at an 8x higher level than for regular medical use.

Panelist Chris Dornan, who works with adult substance abusers and at-risk youth, said there’s no such thing as a “safe” opioid and the term, “safe supply,” is misunderstood by children and youth who buy Dilaudid, which they call “dillies,” from people selling their government hydromorphone to get the much stronger fentanyl “high.” Kids think it’s safe because that’s how government is marketing it. They don’t understand the risks of rapid opioid addiction.

We saw how small actions by the many can have a powerful effect. A 91-year-old woman from the Netherlands shared her post-war experiences. She reminded us that each person did a few “small somethings” to rebuild a war-torn town. Her message was clear: It takes a community to come together to make positive change.

I was sad to see no City councillors there. They missed a very positive opportunity to experience the grassroots in action. I was delighted that the mayor spoke and listened and that MLA Peter Milobar shared his views and expressed his concerns, both with empathy and without the tone of a politician.

I was surprised all the online stone-throwers who complained beforehand that we were inviting bad panelists, going about things all wrong or stirring the coals didn’t show up to disrupt. Or maybe they did but were caught up in the positive synergy of the whole. (As an aside, from my decades in the private sector, I can say for certain that “stirring the coals” is encouraged and expected. We call it optimization. It’s what builds a team and accountability and we saw it in action at the forum.)

We need to make public dialogue like this regular. I urge our city council to reconsider or at least second and debate our mayor’s motion for town hall meetings. But whether they do or not, there will be more public forums like last week’s.

For me and those I spoke to afterward, the six weeks and $thousand we three organizers spent to present it was more than well worth it. Thank you, Kamloops, for restoring my faith in community.

Note: a video recording of the forum is available for viewing at Kamloops Townhall Solutions – Safe Supply & Recovery w/Aaron Gunn & Chris Dornan. – YouTube.

Todd Mason is a Kamloops entrepreneur and self-described people person, balancer and shock absorber. He helped organize the community safety forum.