Robert-Falcon Ouellette held the summit to discuss new ways of battling meth crisis and offered an idea.
At the moment, the politician is not sure how effective his offer will be but he considers it is worth trying. After meeting with police, health, safety, patrol, drug, and social services officials, Robert-Falcon started thinking about putting more safe needle receptacles throughout the city.
The MP informed that there are several such needle boxes in the city. However, their quantity is not enough. According to the politician, an increase in their number can make parks and streets of the city safer for city inhabitants. Every day, volunteers collect a lot of needles on the streets, and some of them suffer from needles a lot — injections occur from time to time. Children walk in the parks, and Robert-Falcon is interested in improving their safety.
Now, the politician is sure how many boxes may be needed, where to place them and about the remaining organizational issues.
The city’s police say that meth is a very big problem: about a third of the murders in 2017 occurred because of meth and 35 deaths due to overdose were registered.
Ouellette also noted that he will be looking for other effective ways to battle meth crisis in the city. For example, better and quicker addictions treatment and controlling of borders to minimize drug trafficking.
Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen was not present at the summit but he made an emailed statement and told that he supports all great ideas in meth crisis combating. During the summit he was at the opening of Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine clinic in Selkirk that will help people with addiction.
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