As Dr. Bromley already mentioned, I am non-partisan in all of this. I look to the patient first and I look to our communities and ask what we can do to make a difference in our communities. We know we can't stop people from doing what their going to do in the addicted world, but we can ensure community safety with some of the things we do.
We have a safe injection site in Burlington and a needle exchange program, which I am quite certain serves a number of people in our community. I would rather have it monitored and cared for and have an opportunity to interact with somebody and to maybe get them to care, because you never know sometimes what a kind word will do.
When I was working at the methadone clinic, the thing that changed my life was when a six foot seven, 350-pound man with tattoos all over him, looking like a biker, broke down and cried when the doctor said to him she knew he could make a difference in his life and she believed he could get off those drugs. He started to cry and he said that no one had ever believed in him in his whole life. I know for the rest of the time I was there as a volunteer, that man came back every week and had negative urines, which meant he wasn't using any drugs, because for the first time someone said she believed in him.
You never know what interaction, what a smile can do one day. I was a teacher so you never know. I see some of my kids now, and they will remind me of things that happened in the classroom that I had no idea had any impact whatsoever on them, but they did. That's what we need to do and reach out to people in our communities. When we look after the people who are the most vulnerable in our communities and we give them a hand and we help them, then we will have better communities.