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Website Helps Youth Fight Drug Addiction

A St. Catharines father hopes SaveMyLife.ca will help others, after he lost his son

A St. Catharines father who lost his young son Jacob to an accidental drug overdose in 2021, hopes a new website will help struggling youth.

Steve Borisenko tells us while there are excellent resources and websites in the community, SaveMyLife.ca, which starts today, is much easier to use at a very difficult time.

"If you're not going through it, you don't look at it, and the loss of a child is something no parent ever wants to look at.  And it's very difficult to think this could be me.  But the reality of it is, the wrong pill, the wrong night, in the wrong place, and you are sitting where I am sitting," he warns.

He adds the next step is to change the laws, saying drug pushers are released from jail soon after getting arrested.

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic don't help, and he says the website will be meant to be an easy to use resource at a time when social avenues such as school and sports were temporarily taken away.  "But when you start to take that away, even a year here or a couple of months there... ugh... the effects are staggering on our kids.  They can't handle it, and they self medicate, and they turn to these drugs that are so easily available."

He adds technology must be addressed, since his son bought the drugs off social media and the dealer came to their backyard.

Listen below for our full interview with Steve Borisenko, which includes him describing the number of parents he's heard from in the same situation.
 

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