A 23% drop in opioid deaths is real progress, but 5,630 Canadians still dying from a toxic drug supply is nothing to celebrate. Cutting safe consumption sites in Alberta and Ontario moves in the wrong direction — harm reduction saves lives even when abstinence is the goal. Treating every death as acceptable collateral damage guarantees this crisis never ends.
Overdose deaths are still far above 2020 levels, when harm reduction expanded massively, and some 60,000 Canadians have died since 2016 — that's not a success story. Spending $50 billion annually to manage a crisis while drug pushers face zero consequences isn't a solution, it's a subsidy for the toxic drug trade. Declining deaths partly reflect a shrinking addict population, not a policy that's actually working.
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