{"id":23856,"date":"2023-04-05T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23856"},"modified":"2023-05-02T09:36:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T16:36:02","slug":"camosun-college-instructor-runs-for-drug-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/04\/05\/camosun-college-instructor-runs-for-drug-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College instructor runs for drug awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most devastating thing that can happen to a parent is losing their child; a parent should never have to go through that level of pain. But at the end of last August, that\u2019s exactly what happened to Camosun College School of Access instructor Jessica Michalofsky when she lost her son Aubrey to toxic drug poisoning.<\/p>\n

In honour of her son and other parents who have lost their loved ones to the drug crisis, Michalofsky is running across southern BC in May and June to help raise awareness (the run is slated to start in Nelson on May 21 and end in Victoria on June 25). Running for awareness is nothing new for Michalofsky, who has been holding protest runs around the Ministry of Health building since late last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a teacher, and I\u2019m a runner, and I\u2019m a mom who lost her son to drug poisoning in the end of August 2022,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been running marathons around the Ministry of Health since October, to protest the government\u2019s inaction in solving this toxic drug crisis and stopping these preventable deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michalofsky\u2019s upcoming runs will consist of her running 30 kilometres a day. There will be public rallies at all of the small communities she visits; she says that everyone is welcome to come to the rallies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun College instructor Jessica Michalofsky and a picture of her son, Aubrey (photo by Nicolas Ihmels\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis May and June I\u2019m going to be running across southern BC in support of people who use drugs and their families,\u201d says Michalofsky. \u201cSo, currently in British Columbia seven people are dying a day from toxic drug poisoning. And we are in the seventh year of a publicly declared public health emergency. And yet, the rate of death is going up not down. I think the rate is now double what it was when the public health emergency was announced back in 2016. So, I\u2019m running across BC to make people aware of the resources that exist and to protect themselves and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s plan in declaring the drug crisis a public health emergency has offered no help at all, says Michalofsky.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath by toxic drugs is the leading cause of death for people ages 19 to 39, and it\u2019s the second leading cause of death for people in older age groups,\u201d says Michalofsky. \u201cSo, we\u2019re not most likely to be killed in car accidents or drowning during the summer; we\u2019re most likely to be killed by toxic drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michalofsky says that the progress she\u2019s made since her runs in October of last year has been less than fruitful. While she\u2019s met with politicians such as minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson and provincial health officer Bonnie Henry, she\u2019s not content with what\u2019s being done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m frustrated with politicians that don\u2019t really seem to be listening to the solutions that are being presented to them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Michalofsky says that the NDP\u2019s recent announcement about funding for treatment centres is a prime example of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, currently, for instance, the NDP government has announced what seems like a whole lot of money for treatment centres, but the problem is, it\u2019s not only people who consider themselves addicted to drugs who are dying,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople who are just, maybe, weekend partiers or first-time users are dying from this. So, having treatment beds available will not stop students, for instance, from dying who are just trying something. We need better solutions. We need safe access to drugs, we need to cut off the black market supply of drugs, which is the problem right now. The drugs are contaminated with all sorts of things because criminals are creating them and they\u2019re not creating very consistent substances, so people who use drugs never know what they\u2019re getting anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

There needs to be better solutions to this crisis, says Michalofsky, and that\u2019s what her runs are promoting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to be alarmed, I want people to be worried. Because, at this point I think everybody knows somebody who has died from this and I think that people aren\u2019t taking it seriously enough… A lot of people are dying from this, and the government\u2019s not taking it seriously, and the approaches they\u2019re coming up with, a lot of them are paternalistic and I think are not going to help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most devastating thing that can happen to a parent is losing their child; a parent should never have to go through that level of pain. But at the end of last August, that\u2019s exactly what happened to Camosun College School of Access instructor Jessica Michalofsky when she lost her son Aubrey to toxic drug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,286],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-april-5-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23858,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23856\/revisions\/23858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}