Almost all of the things you mentioned below were brought into effect after the Gould Report was released in the Annapolis Valley . Do you have any idea how hard it was for me and others here to get those answers? When you say those are some of the things you have been working on it doesn’t sit very well with me . The Minister of Health and your party have not wanted to deal with this issue from the very beginning.  Do you realize how hard me and my community had to fight to get the provincial government to act on this issue??? It was not something you originally were willing to do and were not even acknowledging that it was occurring.

Almost all of the things you mentioned below have occurred before the last 3 overdoses in Bridgewater. Obviously these measures you have taken were not quite enough to save these 3 young people. I know your friend Jim Morton still reverts back to alcohol is a bigger issue . I saw an article in the Herald this weekend where a Health Official said the same thing about Lunenburg County. I beg to differ ! Do you have teenagers and people in their 20’s dying every few months from drinking too much? What about smoking too much weed?? I don’t think so … Yes alcohol is a big issue but people usually have many years to make the decision not too drink before their liver shuts down or they die from alcohol poisoning. Once people start abusing medication they can die the very first time . If they do not OD in the beginning they turn into addicts within weeks to months and then they either die or turn to methadone treatment . Very few people who start abusing prescription drugs live to see an opiate free life. Methadone is an opiate narcotic just like oxycontin or dilaudid . Young people are also dying from abusing methadone. If these drugs are being monitored properly than how can so many drug dealers in the province remain in constant supply. If you talk to local police they are not being shipped in from foreign places . They are scripts being written by our local doctors.

Your parties commercials about mixing Rx drugs and alcohol sent the wrong message. How about don’t abuse them at all?? The government needs to maintain that this is not an over prescribing issue but a kids making stupid choices issue. These people who Od’d did not steal a couple pills from their grandmother and took them to a party. They were buying off drug dealers who maintained constant supplies with legal prescriptions. The prescription drug monitoring program only works if doctors use it !! PMP does not police doctors , they red flag patients behavior . It is a great information keeping tool but if doctors do not check it or simply do not care , PMP does not that the authority to discipline .

I didn’t know your Health Authority was training doctors or expanding methadone treatment ?  As far as I understood AVH has been accommodating your residents so they can receive the methadone treatment people in AVH have been getting.

I hope you have some better answers for people on the 28th and I hope you have contacted Chery Jones . She still had not heard from you the last time we spoke.

Amy Graves
www.gpdots.com