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The fact is we will always have drug use and, with it, the associated costs and crime. The illicit industry is too lucrative and too corrupt for any wall or gun to ever stop its production. Add to this the illusion that we can find a way to end abuse that leads to lifelong trauma or find a cure for mental illness and the disease of addiction. As long as we have human suffering, we will have drug use. As long as we have the need to escape from the moment, there will be a market for substances that take us away. Recovery is a misnomer. We can only manage the outcomes, not fix them. When we wilfully and recklessly refuse to open our minds to the evidence that supports a different direction in substance use management, we accept the negative outcomes.

Sadly, tomorrow will undoubtedly look like today. A team of weary and overwhelmed first responders will do all they can, and another mother will get the knock on her door. Then she, too, will be left to navigate not only the crushing loss forever, but the indignity served to her beautiful child devalued in death by overdose.

So yes, Minister Reiter, if you are listening, you have to do better.

Marie Agioritis lives in Saskatoon. Jenny Churchill lives in Regina. They are members of Moms Stop the Harm Canada.