I come from a little town in Nova Scotia on the eastern tip of Cape Breton Island called Glace Bay. Once a proud town with a bustling economy and a population nearing 40,000; its slogan was ‘Proud People, Bright Future’. We were the largest town in the country for many years and business was booming when one looked at mining, fishing and the nearby steel plant.
As the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end – and end they did in Glace Bay.
First Sydney Steel Plant shut down, then came the coal mines and the fisheries all but died soon thereafter. The once proud people largely became a very depressed town – both economically and emotionally - and an unfortunate side effect of people in desperate situation was that a drug problem began to fester. One drug in particular was at the root of the epidemic; OxyContin.
OxyContin is the brand name for oxycodone hydrochloride, a class 2 narcotic that is a time released painkiller. The drug is one of the most powerful on the prescription drug market and it provides immense pain relieving benefits for up to twelve hours as the medication is slowly released through one’s system. It is also an incredibly addictive drug that tore apart my hometown at its core.
What started out as a carefully monitored medication quickly turned into an overprescribed one for anything from cancer to a sore back. Doctors used it as a treat-all solution and several people got so dependent on the drug that they couldn’t function without it. An underground economy quickly erupted in the town with people selling their prescription stash to addicts for as much as $30 a pill and the highly addictive nature of the drug known as ‘Hillbilly Heroin’ on the streets was being injected and snorted faster than you could say ‘narcotics epidemic’.
At one point, there were so many people in the town addicted and so many deaths due to overdose of the drug that Glace Bay became the subject of a National Film Board of Canada documentary called ‘Cottonland’. A quick perusal of YouTube will show you dozens of news stories and documentaries all warning of the dangers of OxyContin. It’s horrifying how one little pill can do so much damage, and it’s mind blowing to me that the drug hasn’t been taken off the market in favor of a less dangerous alternative.
It makes the fact that the United States’ Food and Drug Administration has given the green light for the drug to be prescribed for children as young as 11 years of age even harder to fathom. You read that correctly – a drug that has crippled communities and ended the lives of people who were hopelessly addicted to it is perfectly okay to administer to kids who haven’t hit puberty yet.
I am in awe.
Kids are diagnosed with so many disorders today and some are overmedicated to the point that they look like extras from television’s ‘The Walking Dead’ – and now we want to give them access to OxyContin too? “Big deal” some might say. “That doesn’t affect us here!” Just because it doesn’t today doesn’t mean that it won’t in the future.
In case you haven’t noticed, here in Canada we take an awful lot of cues from our neighbors to the south and, if anything, they tend to be a little more conservative with their medications down there. Heck, I still know people who hop the border to buy 222s and Tylenol with codeine that are ‘prescription only’ in the U.S. but readily available over the counter in Canada. If the Americans are dishing out the OxyContin to kids, it won’t be long before we start as well.
As parents, it’s our job to keep our kids safe – and one of the things we do as protectors is tell them not to do drugs. At the same time, most of us completely put faith in medical professionals when they issue prescriptions to our kids when they’re sick. I am terrified that there will soon come a day that doctors in New Brunswick will be able to prescribe OxyContin to our pre-teens, and parents who don’t know the difference will simply shrug and blindly administer the recommended dosage to their sons and daughters because of doctor’s orders.
I have seen the damage these pills can do first hand. When they hit my Island home, it was with good intentions. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, sadly, and for every person that was helped by the presence of OxyContin in their life, 10 other lives were ruined. If we start allowing more of these pills to be prescribed to children, you can bet that more of the drugs are going to find their way to the streets and more and more people are going to get irreparably addicted. I moved 300 miles from my hometown and I certainly don’t need its problems following me here.
Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
“You’ve
got a diamond. You got nine men. You got a hat, and a bat, and that’s not all.”
The words of that song have been burned into my brain since I was a kid.
Although I was a die-hard Montreal Expos baseball fan when I was growing up, my
Granddad would cheer for the Toronto Blue Jays as well because he was fiercely
Canadian, and any team that hailed from the Great White North, he would proudly
claim as his own.
“You got the bleachers. You’ve got ‘em from spring ‘til fall. You got a dog,
and a drink, and an umpire’s call. Whaddaya want?”
I spent an awful lot of my childhood sitting in my living room on the couch
with my grandfather being taught the intricacies of the game of baseball. I
also got to learn an awful lot about the man I looked up to my entire life by
listening to his stories about being in the army, working in a coal mine, and
spending months in a fishing boat off the coast of Newfoundland.
“Is that a fly ball? Or is it a seagull - coming in, from the lake, just to
catch the game?”
When the Blue Jays made it to their first World Series in 1992, I was turning
into a cocky teenager. Now that I had a girlfriend, I seemed to have less and
less time to sit on that old couch and watch baseball games with my
Grandad. Without fail, though, whenever
we passed in the hallway or had a few moments to chat he would always let me
know how the Jays were doing. I feigned enthusiasm more often than not, for his
sake, but I really didn’t care a whole lot about what was going on with
baseball.
“It’s the last inning. Our guys are winning”
I was at home the night of game 6, though, when Dave Winfield drove in the
go-ahead run to give the Toronto Blue Jays their first World Championship – the
first Canadian team to ever win the honour.
“Dave’s put down a smoker, a strike, and there’s no doubt (you’re out!).
Whaddaya want?”
I remember that night seeing my Granddad cry tears of happiness because he saw
one of his favorite teams finally win a championship. Two guys who never showed
affection to one another hugged that night in our little living room in Glace
Bay. We got to do it again the following year when Joe Carter hit that booming
home run in the ninth inning of another World Series Game 6 to clinch another
title for the boys from Toronto.
“Okay! Blue Jays!”
One short year later, I lost my taste for baseball entirely. They canceled the
World Series the year when it looked like my beloved Expos would finally get to
hoist the championship trophy. I haven’t
watched so much as an inning of the grand old game since then and I had no
desire to; until now.
As I write this column, the Toronto Blue Jays have just taken over first place
in their division by going on a monumental 10 game winning streak, their second
of the season, and toppled the mighty New York Yankees from the top of the
American League east mountain. It’s the first time in 22 years that the Jays
have led heir division this late in August and the possibility of them making a
deep playoff run is a very real one.
All I can think of is my Granddad and how happy he would be.
A friend of mine, who is a huge Blue Jays fan, had something interesting to say
when I told him of my emotional connection to the game of baseball and my
grandfather. He said that it’s always good when something happens that reminds
you of someone that you loved – even if it’s just a baseball game. He’s
completely right. I think it may be time
for me to check out a game again for the first time in over twenty years and I
think I may have some company of my own.
My oldest son is only a few short years away from becoming that cocky teenager
his father was so many years ago. My youngest son isn’t far behind him. I have
a golden opportunity to make some memories with a couple of little boys who
look up to me and teach them a little about life under the guise of teaching
them the ‘intricacies of the game’ as my Grandad did to me. I’ll tell them
about sacrifices, swinging for the fences, settling for a base hit when you thought it should be a
double, and how sometimes you’ll get thrown out at home no matter how hard you
run.
I will cheer for the Blue jays to win a championship this year. I’ll hop on
that bandwagon and buy new hats for my boys and I to sport proudly and maybe
try to recapture some of that magic I had so many years ago. That can’t
possibly be a bad thing.
“Let’s play ball!”
One has to wonder, though, why people even bother getting married in today’s society. It seems like every time I turn around, someone I know has decided to shed the bonds of matrimony. It’s almost embarrassing how many times I have asked someone I haven’t seen in a while how their significant other is only to be told, “Oh didn’t you hear? We split up.” Celebrities seem to marry and divorce faster than we can say “I don’t”, but what’s really jarring is when someone like country star Reba McEntire and her husband call it quits after 26 years . Even Hollywood’s newest Batman isn’t immune, as Ben Affleck separated from his wife of 10 years just a few weeks ago. If these stars can’t make it work with all the money and fame in the world, what’s the hope for the average Jane and Joe?
Against all odds, though, some people do make marriage work. They fight through adversity, operate as a team, and stand beside each other through thick and thin. They take ‘until death do us part’ seriously, and offer some hope for those who still believe that matrimony can endure. Some people just won’t give up. As someone approaching my ten year anniversary with my wife, these folks inspire me.
Maybe that’s why I’m so upset with what’s happening in New Brunswick right now with some senior couples being forced to consider divorcing their spouse because of mounting bills from nursing home care. For some, it all boils down to the decision of paying the increasing costs of having your partner in a care facility or having the finances to live independently and be able to pay for things like food and shelter. As insane as this situation sounds, it’s a harsh reality right now in this province for many couples.
In New Brunswick, a married couple’s net income is factored into the equation when determining nursing home rates. It would seem like a reasonable situation if everyone with a spouse in nursing home care was financially well-off and could easily pay whatever their portion is of the monthly fee that is decided. That’s a perfect world scenario, however, and not a real world one. The fact of the matter is that there are thousands of New Brunswick natives who are scraping by at or slightly above the poverty line and some seniors who are living on a meagre pension they have paid into and earned from their decades of working in this province.
What is happening as of late is that some nursing home rates have inexplicably raised– as much as $700 per month in the recent case of an Oromocto gentleman who has been married to his wife for 52 years – and the increased cost is simply too much for people to absorb when they are living on a fixed income. How does one reconcile the situation in their head that if they continue to subsidize the cost of their spouse’s continued care, they may not be able to support themselves?
Have no fear, though. The provincial government has stated that people in this situation can qualify for a ‘temporary contribution adjustment’ if they are experiencing undue hardship – defined as "the inability to pay for adequate food, monthly mortgage or rent, sufficient home heat, and prescribed medication and health care." Try as I might, I could find no information on how much less someone experiencing ‘undue hardship’ would be expected to pay, or how long the temporary adjustment would last for. Clear as mud, eh?
Our provincial government touts that this is a cost-saving measure for our province and how it’s a necessary evil at a time when we all need to be pulling up our socks. That’s all well and good, but when I see the mind-boggling things our provincial dollars are spent on I have a really big problem with folks who have lived, worked, and paid taxes in this province for decades being financially squashed. They’re crushed to the point where their only way out appears to be separating themselves from their life partner so that nursing home care is subsidized by the government. How is this right?
This is a very complex issue that can’t be completely broken down in the limited space I have here. Do you research and find out for yourself t is happening to some of our most vulnerable residents under the guise of fiscal responsibility. I have expressed in this column many times before that the bankruptcy of this province is a real possibility in the future if our financial course isn’t corrected. What I’m afraid of is that when situations like this one come to light, I can’t help but wonder if we’re already morally bankrupt.
