Recently the article at the bottom was published by Vernon Matters regarding the drug crisis.
This approach followed by the public health officials and certain groups publicly states the following objective in quotation below. Although it does discuss more wholistic approaches as well, this one definitely stands out as the main fight against the evil. It seems painfully obvious to point out that, it is not working, nor will it ever work to stop the suffering. The great achievements of our wonderful world have not come from short sighted band-aid ideas. Neither Einstein nor Henry Ford was under such reactive and limited scope in their thinking. Why should we be? This “harm reduction” objective stated in the Vernon matters article is concerning:
“Knowing how to access an overdose prevention or safe consumption site and carrying naloxone can save someone’s life today, and we are continuing to add more overdose prevention services.”
It is true that concerned groups are not downplaying the dangers of drugs or the usage but are trying to deal with the aftermath and the effect of the harm caused. The Emily Dahl Foundation talks about the healthier happy environment of life and choices we all make. Trying to help the kids or people who make the “wrong choice” after the fact certainly has the right intent behind it. However, The Emily Dahl Foundation questions the approach.
The Emily Dahl Foundation expresses deep concern for those that are suffering from drug use.
Not just addicts, but recreational users that feel this somehow enhances their life experience or is some form of medical solution.
This is particularly dangerous for all young adults in our society.
The Okanagan College in Vernon has a large sign out front that says:
“Cannabis Course – Enroll now”
The UBC Campus in Kelowna recently had a sign in the middle of the lobby said:
“Naloxone Courses – Offered at UBC ”
The Emily Dahl Foundation cautions that this is the wrong approach to solving the problem and, if anything, adds to the suffering.
Whether coming from the perspective of neuroscience or meditation, our aim is to understand how we can encourage self-control, manage our emotions, and offer children a purposeful life that will prevent substance abuse.
In other words, put the gates up before the flood comes.
Drug users, instead of arriving in the future at a consciousness altered into a higher one, they arrive in the present at a rotting one. Such is the danger of these chemical hallucinogenic drugs.
What is the most concerning is not the adults that promote the use of drugs but the obvious fact that young persons are easily deceived by the sham uplift which drugs may confer.
These children that come at us with intense suffering and substance problems, they are our children. We taught them. Let’s fix the root of the problem, let’s change our thoughts and actions. This will actually begin to stop the suffering and death. This will change the world.
The truth is that few in the current world wish to trouble themselves with following such a way of regeneration, and most prefer the comfortable sloth of accepting their deficiencies as normal qualities of the human being. Therefore, they allow one thing after another, one event after another, to detain them from making the any real ascent and so waste a whole life before they are even aware that it is wasted.
Is their spiritual life to wait like a whining beggar on those intervals of leisure which a materialistic existence throws them like treats to a dog? Some have even turned away from the true path to joy because other things claimed a stronger interest. Others have given up its goal simply because they believe it to be unattainable. And then there are those who are literally afraid of the devotion required to find a real solution. It seems in their eyes to demand too much or give too little. But there is always hope. Every day is another 24 hours to change our thoughts and change the world.
Sherman Dahl, September 30, 2021
The Emily Dahl Foundation
July was the second-deadliest month on record in B.C.’s toxic drug crisis
