Canada is currently plagued by an opioid crisis. Opioids such as fentanyl are drugs that are commonly used to relieve pain. These drugs, however, can be extremely addictive and their misuse has led to thousands of overdoses and deaths.
In 2017, 88 Hamilton residents died from opioid overdoses. So far into this year, Hamilton Paramedic Services has already responded to 161 incidents of suspected opioid overdoses. In comparison to other cities within the province, Hamilton has the highest opioid-related death rate.
While there is no publicly available data on the demographics of opioid use in Hamilton, in general, young adults aged 18 to 25 are the most vulnerable to opioid misuse. As the rate of opioid misuse increases annually, it is imperative that students are aware of the availability of naloxone.
Naloxone is a fast-acting drug that temporarily reverses the effects of opioid overdoses until medical emergency services can arrive. As of March 2019, Public Health and the Naloxone Expansion Sites in Hamilton have distributed 2496 doses of naloxone, with 285 people reported as being revived by the drug.
McMaster University’s student-led Emergency First Response Team and McMaster University security officers carry and are trained to use naloxone nasal kits in case of emergency situations. While Mac’s security officers only recently began to carry the kits, EFRT responders have been carrying them since August 2017.
Fortunately, EFRT has not had to use any of their kits since they began carrying them. While this may imply that opioid-related overdoses have not occurred on campus, this does not guarantee that students are not at risk at opioid misuse.
As EFRT responders and McMaster security cannot always be available to respond to students’ needs off-campus, students should be more aware of their ability to carry and be trained to use naloxone kits.
While the Student Wellness Centre does not carry the free naloxone kit, the McMaster University Centre Pharmasave located within the McMaster University Student Centre does, in addition to the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies located near campus. To obtain a kit, all students must do is show their Ontario health card.
The fact that this life-saving drug is so readily available to students on and near campus is amazing. It is disappointing then that the university hasn’t done a sufficient job in advertising this information to students.
Students should be given naloxone kits and mandatory opioid information and response training at the beginning of the academic term. At the very least, this information can be distributed during Welcome Week along with other orientation events.
The opioid crisis is one that affects us all, especially here in Hamilton. McMaster University should help fight this crisis by ensuring that their students are equipped with the knowledge to recognize an opioid overdose and have the necessary tools to help reverse them.
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By: Alex Bryant
Many students at McMaster University are furious over the recent changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program. Our student unions, which are some of the best tools we have to collectively resist changes like these, are also under attack.
The Ontario government will soon deem some ancillary fees “unnecessary.” Given the extreme cost of education at Ontario colleges and universities, students are likely to feel strong-armed into opting out of these fees.
While student-run groups and services funded through direct ancillary fees play an important role in students’ lives, we should expect the government to use this framework to attack student unions by making union dues optional.
Doing so poses an existential threat to the McMaster Students Union, the Graduate Students Association and, by extension, campus groups and services under their umbrella.
Legislation in Quebec and British Columbia protects some student unions from attacks of this kind, but no such legislation exists in Ontario. Students must collectively resist this attack on student unions but also recognize that defending the existence of these organizations does not require defending the actions of current or past student leaders.
This government has its sights set on student unions because our organizations have for decades played a key role in fights for change at the governmental, institutional and community level. This is not because our unions are over-run with political reactionaries, but because the work of student unions naturally cultivates political community between students of differing backgrounds.
When we join union-based clubs or benefit from related services, we also have the opportunity to critically engage with our peers over shared struggles and recognize our ability to overcome these struggles together. When we allocate union resources to student-led projects, we choose to build a community where everyone can have enough food to eat, openly love who they want to love, safely walk alone at night and relax by having a great party.
This critical recognition of our shared experience is also the basis of student unions’ advocacy for students’ diverse interests, and as central locations for organized opposition to the origins of our shared struggles — tuition fees, for example — alongside others outside of our campus community.
Unfortunately, conservative politicians tend to defend the grounds for the struggles we face by protecting the interests of those who benefit most from the status quo. Hence why conservative politicians and campus conservatives have long attacked student unions and related groups.
Long after students choose to found their unions, the processes of direct democracy of the general assemblies and referenda used to set union due rates, and members’ participation in the allocation of this funding through votes on budgets and representative bodies, reflect that student unions are fundamentally for students and our interests.
We may wish voter turnout were required to be higher, disagree with some of the campaigns and policies adopted by the organizations our union funds, or something similar. We should hold fast to these legitimate criticisms, engage with our peers about them and demand change where those leading our unions have genuinely failed us.
If our demands are ignored, we may rightfully escalate our actions until they are implemented just as we will do with the provincial government. However, criticizing the work of our unions and related organizations is importantly different from attempting to eliminate these organizations, which is what the provincial government seeks.
Hoping finally to accomplish their thinly-veiled goal of destroying student organizing, the provincial government has even abused our critical examination of our peers’ work in order to support an existential threat to our unions.
I've heard from so many students who are tired of paying excessive fees, only to see them wasted and abused.
That's why we're giving students the power to choose to pay for the campus services they actually use.https://t.co/XYC8G4jaZ0
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) January 26, 2019
We must forcefully resist this rhetoric and this attack. We must protect our student organizations as a whole by keeping in the foreground their foundational importance to our ability to organize, and by doubling-down on our commitment to support the collection of union dues.
Especially under the current government, students across Ontario must work together to become educated about the struggles facing our peers, build skills, organize, resist and stand in solidarity with others doing the same — student unions continue to be one of our best tools for doing so.
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