Violent response is not the answer to our problems
KAMLOOPS — Sometimes, a column I write both saddens and disturbs me beyond all expectations and last week’s column was one of those. I wrote about the needle buy-back program and expected and got a diverse response with strong opinions on both sides of the story. However, I was not expecting a Kamloops resident to suggest we imitate President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and send out death squads to murder drug dealers and users.
My column was shared a number of times and generated numerous comments, on various platforms that were mostly supportive of the buy-back effort but not everyone was behind the idea. In response to one of the shared posts, a guy who I’ll call, Mike, wrote, “They [addicts] go from the welfare office to the dealer the more you give these two legged rats the worst it becomes you will never solve it unless a hard line is taken like in the Philippines.”
What Mike calls “hard line” is actually called murder by everyone else and according to Amnesty International, it also includes rape and torture. Mike doesn’t care though as he feels people using drugs are “two legged rats” and I assume this means that in his mind, it’s okay to kill them here in Kamloops as well.
Mike is probably aware that if the killers on these Philippine death squads need information on who else might be using or dealing, then torture is their go-to method for obtaining names. Of course information gained through torture is unreliable and will likely lead to the killing of more innocent people.