The sun shines on the pristine pavement and the neat rows of houses in the Rockridge Road area.
No crumbling facades here, no trash piled up in yards or shifty-looking folks skulking in the bushes.
This is the kind of neighbourhood where many of us aspire to be able to buy a home one day, where the kids can play in the streets and the seniors can poke around the garden with a spade.
It’s not where most people envision there to be house where drugs are found.
Most of us tend to hold certain prejudices about where drugs are created, sold or stored, and the people that engage in these activities.
Surely it’s all confined to the “bad” part of town, right?
Not so.
If we continue to think that, we may be surprised when the hazmat truck pulls up next door to do an assessment for fentanyl.
It’s become clear with the opioid crisis that while expected places like Vancouver’s downtown eastside are hotspots for overdoses and deaths, it’s hitting all walks of life.
Anyone who uses illicit drugs, whether habitually or as a random periodic party high, is in danger. Because at the heart of it, you don’t know where your drugs came from. You don’t know what’s in them. You don’t know how strong they are. You don’t know if the person who mixed them knows what they’re doing. You don’t know if you meant to get cocaine but it’s tainted with fentanyl that will send you to the ER, and maybe the graveyard.
Do you really trust your drug dealer that much? With your life?
Do you trust the person that funnelled the drugs to your dealer? And all the people in the supply chain behind them?
These are questions that you really should be considering before you decide to buy and use.
Nobody is immune. Whether they live in a tenement or a mansion.
