Some Windsorites feel there is a systemic failure when it comes to open drug use. “I think this is bonkers and this has to change,” Dilkens said during Monday’s council meeting. He was responding to Acting Deputy Chief Ken Cribley’s report that painted a picture of police’s inability to arrest people for open use of drugs because, he says, the courts that oversee drug prosecution have all but decriminalized simple possession use. Cribley explained that the most an officer can do is ask people to stop what they’re doing in public and move along. They do not have arrest authority. Dilkens was candid when explaining how tough is as chair of the police board to not be able help enforce stricter authority. “It’s really hard for me to say they really don’t have a lot of tools, a lot of arrows in the quiver, to be able to deal with this situation because they don’t have support on the end when it matters which is the court end,” he said. Councillor Renaldo Agostino is also frustrated. “I’m not looking at the person suffering from addiction crisis and blaming them. It’s not their fault,” said Agostino. Agostino says there are factors fuelling the scenario before the police and drug user interaction which has helped put communities across Canada in crisis. Those factors include organized crime, sex work, drug dealers, and a system that facilitates the use of pharmaceuticals. “We’re allowing those to continue and that can’t happen,” he said. Dr. Tariq Elsayegh, also known as Dr. T, is an addiction medicine physician who says some rapid access addiction clinics that do not provide the comprehensive wrap around support for patients are helping to fuel the opiate crisis. “If this is not a regulated service this allows high volumes of medications to be entering the street. Individuals that are prone, naive to using opiates altogether in hopes for the user to continue to be able to support the original addiction itself,” Dr. T explained. “The truth is they are not actually taking the medications that were intended to be consumed within the pharmacy or the centre, and this is actually making it on to the streets.” Where, he says, the extra pills are being sold in order to buy a stronger fix which is driving overdoses. “Sending an individual to prison without having the supports to help them break the behaviour is not really going to solve the issue long term,” he said. Agostino feels a serious conversation needs to happen at all levels. He says if police can’t arrest people for open drug use, moving people along is pushing the problem around. “Are we going to take a bold step like Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew took when he said 72-hour mandatory treatment for Crystal Meth addictions. Are we going to move in that direction?” Agostino wondered. “Or are we just going to keep clowning around? I don’t mind going things differently, but I want to do something differently because what we’re doing right now when it comes to the addictions and drug crisis on the streets, if anybody tells me it’s working, you’re lying.”
