Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 3, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba Too many patients Re: ‘Dr. Google’ comes with risks, campaign warns (Jan. 31) People of Manitoba would not have to refer to Dr. Google if we got our appointments, tests, and diagnoses done in a timely manner instead of having to wait six months or more to see a specialist or get an MRI done. This is not the fault of the people working in the health-care system but it is the fault of govern- ment letting too many people into the country and not keeping up with the service increases that are needed to accommodate these people. Either increase the services quickly or signifi- cantly decrease the amount of people coming into the country and hope we can catch up with the backlog as soon as possible, before more people die waiting for a test or doctor. RON ROBERT Winnipeg Defining mass timber Re: “Forests and trees” (Letters, Jan. 31) In his Jan. 31 letter, Ken McLean was con- cerned that old-growth forests are being cut down to produce mass timber for the proposed seven-storey high-rise building near the Forks. He then stated, “I must be missing something.” Here is what he is missing. Mass timber is sim- ply regular dimensional lumber (2x4, 2x6, etc.) that is glued or laminated together, often at right angles to each other to create strength. Entire walls and floor can be manufactured faster and cheaper and then assembled onsite. These forest products are known as CLT (cross-laminated timber) or GLT (glue lami- nated timber). Cross-laminated timbers can be made into almost any thickness, or length. The dimensional lumber comes from regular saw- mills, using spruce, pine or balsam fir (that’s the SPF you see stamped on lumber) from managed forests, not old-growth forests. Using timber in this manner has a lighter carbon footprint than steel or concrete, and comes from a 100 per cent renewable source. Canada owns 10 per cent of the world’s forests, and are sustainably managed using Forest Stew- ardship Council standards (fsc.org). We harvest less than one per cent of our approximately 400 million hectares of forest. We lose far more annu- ally to insects, fire and disease. These facts can be found on the Canadian Forest Service website (natural-resources canada.ca) Old-growth forests are wonderful ecosystems, and only exist because they have ‘dodged the bullets’ that Mother Nature throws at our forests daily, such as ice storms, wind storms and other dynamic and natural forces, and even they, too, like all life forms, eventually die of old age. BOB AUSTMAN Beausejour Up-close view of atrocity Re: “Painful history” (Letters, Jan. 28) In spring of 1964 at the age of 24, whilst residing in Germany and touring the beautiful and historic countryside, I had the occasion to walk through one of the concentration camps (Dachau), north of Munich with no inkling of what I was about to perceive. I came face to face with, up until then, the writ- ten horrors of the Second World War. Reminders of life as depicted in a concentration camp were everywhere. It was raining the day I went for this memorable walk and my feet sunk into mud as I trudged from barracks to the ovens to the showers. The ghosts of lost souls were all around you. You could hear, see, smell and yet there was no one there now. Displays for the public consisted of caked blood on the wall, the floor and the beating clubs. Pho- tographs of atrocities and some of the lost souls were hanging everywhere along with the ghostly screams and unearthly silence. My walk through this death camp was made on Good Friday which made it even more memora- ble to me as something that should never have been. I will never forget witnessing the living nightmare that was. Trembling from the unearth- ly surroundings, I left the premises, quietly and silently, feeling like an intruder on the outside looking in at unimaginable suffering. I learned nothing of this in school. Rene Jamie- son has an indelible knowledge of these ghosts of lost souls, as do I. DIANE R. UNGER Winnipeg Fearing for Canadian science Re: Trump’s calculated assault on science (Think Tank, Jan. 27) While it is disturbing, though not surprising, that Donald Trump is attacking scientific institu- tions, halting new research, muzzling scientists and destroying climate-related research, I am more alarmed at the prospect of Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party repeating similar tactics that Stephen Harper used against federal scientific institutions in Canada when he was in power. In 2012, the Harper Conservatives eliminated many federal scientific programs, most notably the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area. Scientists were restricted from speaking to citi- zens about their research, with staffers appointed to monitor them. I remember scientists and con- cerned citizens publicly demonstrating against these actions by the Conservatives, something in which scientists, in their professional capacities, rarely engage. Poilievre has been part of the Harper Conser- vative caucus since 2004 and was there in 2012 when these assaults on our scientists took place. Since being elected to lead the Conservatives, I have heard him repeatedly use the same demean- ing language used by Trump, directed against people and organizations at large, accusing them of being “elites” and “woke.” Yet, I have never heard him explain what he means by this language, or specifically who he is targeting. I watched him support the participants of the “freedom” convoy and make clear his stance against vaccine mandates. He and his party have hammered people with a deliberate campaign of misinformation about carbon pricing, yet I have not heard any practical policy ideas that would help us reduce our carbon emissions. Given these circumstances, and his support for the assaults on science that took place under Stephen Harper, I have no doubt that Poilievre will unleash similar, calculated and devastating assaults on our scientific and public health insti- tutions. KIM TYSON Winnipeg Managing Trump In planning how to navigate the second Trump presidency, it may be useful to examine the na- ture of the person we’re dealing with. Commonly accepted characteristics of “anti- social personality disorder,” i.e., sociopathy, in- clude: lack of empathy, inability or unwillingness to distinguish between right and wrong, lying, lack of respect for others, criminal behaviour, sense of superiority, and hostile, aggressive behaviour. In other words, a clear portrait of Donald Trump. Then, we have to remember that a majority of Americans voted for him. So, what to do? I sug- gest that, given the power of this particular socio- path, avoid unnecessary provocation, but respond calmly and proportionally in ways that don’t unduly harm Canadians. Give urgent priority to finding non-American trading partners, including Canadian ones in other provinces. Aggressively promote “buy Canadian” and stringently avoid buying U.S.-made products. And importantly, do not give your political sup- port to those who support or would emulate the policies of such a person. RON MENEC Winnipeg LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WHAT’S YOUR TAKE? THE FREE PRESS WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU. The Free Press is committed to publishing a diverse selection of letters from a broad cross-section of our audience. The Free Press will also consider longer submissions for inclu- sion on our Think Tank page, which is a platform mandated to present a wide range of perspectives on issues of current interest. We welcome our readers’ feedback on articles and letters on these pages and in other sections of the Free Press ● Email: Letters: letters@winnipegfreepress.com Think Tank submissions: opinion@winnipegfreepress.com ● Post: Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, R2X 3B6 Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. OUR VIEW YOUR SAY COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A6 MONDAY FEBRUARY 3, 2025 Safe consumption sites and unacceptable risk L ET’S take a trip down into your bowel. Or, maybe, into the bowel of someone close to you. Or, more accurately, into the bowels of downtown drug culture in Winnipeg. Let’s talk about Lomotil. Not just Lomotil, but its generic equivalents as well. In some ways, Lomotil is a sort of classic med- ical equivalent of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Here’s why — the No. 1 side effect of treating people with opioid drugs for pain or anything else is constipation. The side effect is so common that it hits 40 to 90 per cent of people being treated with opioids, and happens because, along with everything else they do, opioids slow down the entire digestive tract. (We could more thoroughly spell out the me- chanics of how that works, but perhaps it’s taking things too far. And taking things too far, after all, is what Google is for.) So, researchers harnessed a bad thing to do a good thing: they took the side effect of opioid use to treat the exact opposite of constipation. The opioid they used is diphenoxylate hydrochloride: it does to the digestive system exactly what other opioids do, and to prevent it, like many other opioids, from being abused, they combined it with atropine. Atropine, which actually first came from the poisonous plant known as deadly nightshade, counteracts some of the unwanted effects of the diphenoxylate. (The atropine isn’t completely effective in its role as supporting actor — side effects listed for the combination still warn that “physical dependence, psychological dependence, and abuse are possible at high doses.”) After science put the two together, Lomotil was born and marketed as prescription-only. The combination doesn’t actually solve the issues causing the diarrhea, but it does address the effect. So, how do we get from an anti-diarrheal prescription drug to the gritty edges of Winnipeg drug culture? Well, unlike the mechanism that makes Lomotil work, the connections aren’t easily and directly drawn out. Last Sunday, 10 males overdosed in a span of two hours in inner-city Winnipeg, stretching emergency services to their limits. The culprit is not certain in all of the cases, but the main suspect is a drug combination with the nickname “brown down.” Brown down is a mixture of ben- zodiazepenes, fillers, and sometimes opioids. The same day, Safer Sites, an advocacy group for a supervised consumption site, sent out a drug alert saying that brown down samples had tested positive for … diphenoxylate hydrochloride. Those who took the drug most likely had no idea that it had a drug used for halting diarrhea, how much there was in their drugs, or even where it came from. Nor do we. Some editorials look for solutions. Others ex- plain issues. This one, perhaps, is just looking for a little understanding, with a small explanation of a solution tucked in, too. What it’s asking you to understand is that some people are so desperate that they don’t even care what they are putting into their bodies to get the high they’ve come to need. Lomotil is always the same: the basic formula- tion is 0.025 mg of atropine and 2.5 mg of diphe- noxylate in a round, white tablet with “SEARLE” stamped on one side and “61” on the other side. The tablet also contains acacia, cornstarch, mag- nesium stearate, mineral oil, sorbitol, sucrose, and talc. Street drugs don’t come with a list of ingredi- ents or an expectation of purity. The solution we’re trying to explain the need for, perhaps in the most roundabout of ways, is that there’s a reason there have to be safe consumption sites — including the capability for testing street drugs for dangerous contaminants — and available treatment to help protect those around us who are most at risk. EDITORIAL Published since 1872 on Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS Drug users often don’t know what they’re using. ;