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What we've lost (2): Stigma

It turns out that population-wide disdain for those who live to get high was a very good thing

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The last 10 or 15 years have not been kind to Canada. Along with a decline in prosperity has come an erosion of the things that made our society great, a decline of what held us together and made us the envy of the world: things like resilience, friendship and service. In this series, National Post writers consider What We’ve Lost.

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Progressives were so preoccupied with eradicating stigmas that contain anti-social behaviour in Canadian society, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Well, they accomplished their goal: that natural containment field of shame that once stood between people and bad decisions is gone. Is your life better because of it? Probably not.

What we've lost (2): Stigma Back to video

We were assured that the stigma against drugs was really just a Darwinian filter erected by 20th-century prudes to stop the most vulnerable and addicted from getting help. If only that were true. Breaking down the shame of drug addiction — by legalizing cannabis and decriminalizing possession, among other things — didn’t shrink homeless encampments or stall overdoses. Instead, it grew them.

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