Stop the *Killing Streets

I’m speaking out. Another young man lost his future. Middle class, loving family – who failed him?  

I can’t attest to what’s happening in my gorgeous down home but when I came to Ontario I lived in many of the rough neighbourhoods. 

I didn’t know what this place Ontario was, except it was hell. Going from an innocent place to what I saw through my young adult life slapped me down. I cried for many years.

 As I tried to settle in, a foreigner in my own country all because I spoke English with my island’s dialect, a lousy reporter did a piss poor documentary about my island Newfoundland. 

Meanwhile drugs were becoming King. When someone mentioned pearl, we knew it wasn’t the stooped lady selling apples or an adorment a lady wore. This pearl had a deathly pallor and inticed you until you began to beg for her. 

Many of my friends fell on the streets covered in white and death. Both sexes, various classes, cultures and ages. 

I witnessed an 11 year old shoot up in broad daylight. No one stopped him. No one dared because the dealers and their bosses ran the streets. 

I asked a friend why he did it. He said, “I tried it to know how it feels, the high was amazing. I wanted to feel it again. But you don’t. The pure high you only get once then you keep doing it because you don’t know and it never happens. Then your body turns on you. The pain’s like a surgeon cutting you without anaesthesia. It’s all you want to kill the pain. You don’t want to eat, drink, just sweets. I need lots of sweets. I can’t kick it. It has me.”  

Everyday the killing streets fed on beautiful lives. For all I suffered many families suffered the loss of their loved ones. 

I’m not saying Newfs are so innocent as many drank and still do. I had my fair share of parties, yet it seemed innocent compared to how quick drugs took lives. Growing up you do lose your innocence while better understanding life –  bitter and sweet. 

I know people are born with an addictive personality which increases their chances to never stop. Yet it is possible. Hearing of this Newfoundland boy today, and so many down home, the place in my mind’s eye looks white as death, I must admit my island has lost its innocence too.

Let’s all wake up. Push for more programs. Use what is at hand.

 I don’t know all the means the medical profession has to save one life. I know methadone has been around for decades. It has given some back their lives. We can’t save them all as I know first hand but doing nothing, ignoring the issue, we’ll lose them all.

 I’m blessed, I know it. Walking among the living dead and making it out without a needle scratch. I can say why for many reasons but this is not what my ranting is about. 

I’ve used that tiresome remark ‘ I never thought he – she would….Anyone can take this insidious life sucking fall. 

The gov’t must branch out to catch these arses who take our loved ones without losing sleep. The drug dealers are certainly finding new clients and ways to smuggle in the killing high. 

The experts say ‘You can’t talk to a junkie or a drunk.’ You can speak up for them to those who we pay to keep us safe even from drugs. We are all in this fight. Stop ignoring the problem. Stop saying this can never happen to me or mine. The graveyards are filled with these deny thoughts. 

Time to push The government. 

I miss my friends very much even after so many decades and at times, I see their futures not lived. Never forgotten. 

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