SooToday received the following Letter to the Editor from reader William Nash, in response to Any talk of forced treatment 'makes my blood boil:
She ends her letter with, "This world-wide devastation only gets better when we start listening to solutions from the community of people who are working in it, volunteering in it, and living it". Perhaps starting her letter with this comment would clarify to the readers that often the approach to increase "support" comes from a point of job security as much as a plea to understand the situation as only they see it.
She paints other social problems with a hue that changes colour with a twisted perspective to suit her concerns. She has chosen to use only the intersectionality of social constructs that support her perspective, while applying a perspective to other people in society that blames them for social problems in the same way she is attempting to chastise.
While smokers and drinkers do have their own list of problems that contribute to social deviance, those problems do not generally publicly impact most of society. Those smokers and drinkers generally own homes or rent apartments, hold down meaningful jobs, have families they support, pay taxes, and are able to interact and communicate with the rest of society within societal "norms". Other than taxing a health-care system (for which they are supporting with their tax dollars), the smokers and drinkers don't have the comparable impact on society that the homeless and the addicted contribute.
The implied notion that our health-care system is clogged up with aged boomers is nothing but pure ageism and ignorance or denial of the real problem. We boomers have built the foundation for our current society, good or bad, and until the last of us are gone, we don't get to wish us all "dead" to expedite her mission.
Her reference to Residential Schools, the "Scoop", and other Indigenous issues is nothing short of unrelated sensationalism to mask her weak argument. If the issue of forced treatment (or other similar yet effective alternatives) are approved, it will have to be done through the enactment of a law(s), which I am sure as a former law enforcement person, she would agree must be upheld. I believe similarities to Residential Schools et al serve only as a "red herring" and those mistakes will not be repeated.
The concept of "support" provides the vision that this issue won't be resolved, just "supported" for a long lasting effect on society, which is trying to makes this best for everyone. Simply offering "support" will not end the issue, and just continue to cost tax payers' dollars that could be spent elsewhere. I believe any legislation to provide mandatory treatment will be tempered to apply to those most at risk, and not be a blanket program to encompass those still with personal choices they can enact.
At some point in their lives, these people she champions DID make the choice to head in the direction they did. To ignore the fact it is their "choice" further perpetuates the idea that the issue should be "supported" and not "resolved."
William Nash,
Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.