Pubdate: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 Source: Georgia Straight, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 The Georgia Straight Contact: http://www2.mybc.com/aroundtown/straight/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1084 Authors: Axel Biehl, Michael Anderson, Dean McLean ON ADDICTION, DISABILITY, AND CARNEGIE As someone who has experienced addiction in the form of a protracted battle with alcohol, I take strong exception to the remark by Coun. Sam Sullivan in your April 19-26 issue [Straight Talk]: "You don't treat drug addicts by curing them any more than you treat quadriplegics by making them walk. You've got to help them manage their disability." Not only is this a profound insult to quadriplegics and others who are permanently disabled through no fault of their own, but also to the countless drug addicts and alcoholics who have cured themselves by simply quitting. Sullivan's attitude points up the fundamental wrong-headedness of the "harm-reduction" ethos, which absolves addicts by labelling them as victims of a "disability" rather than recognizing addiction for what it is: a choice for which the addict is responsible and which only the addict has the ability to change. Axel Biehl Vancouver - ----------------------- ON ADDICTION, DISABILITY, AND CARNEGIE According to John Turvey, as well as the B.C. Human Rights Commission, drug addiction is now to be regarded as a disability ["Carnegie Nailed With Human-Rights Claim", April 12-19]. In other words, the addict has no more choice at any point in the process of addiction than someone with a birth defect, paraplegia, or schizophrenia. Please explain to a poor benighted fool (who has flirted with addiction himself) who isn't able to make that semantic leap-and be sure to spread the word among all the organizations for the disabled. Turvey, you are an ass-head. While 35,000 people a day worldwide starve to death, you spend your energy trying to punish the last island of civilization in the Downtown Eastside because they don't like having junkies wandering in and out of the premises. Are you going to follow up on this latest idiocy and suggest that nobody has the right to prevent anyone from entering their homes or places of business? Leave the Carnegie alone. It will close when they finally realize what a sad joke it has become: an open-air mart and pissing wall for hypes that everyone else is terrified to come near. Michael Anderson Vancouver - ---------------------- ON ADDICTION, DISABILITY, AND CARNEGIE As a resident of the Downtown Eastside, I am becoming sick of the pandering John Turvey and like-minded organizations are giving to the junkies down here. I am sick of hearing "up", "down", "rock", "powder" every time I leave my front door. I am sick of junkies using the back lanes around my home as an open-air toilet/trick pad/shooting gallery. I am sick of having friends' and neighbours' cars and homes broken into. I am sick of the police brass caving in to special-interest groups, and I am sick of people like Turvey abusing the human-rights legislation to further their own agenda. If the people of B.C. knew the true scope of the financial black hole that is harm reduction in the Downtown Eastside, I wonder what they would say. Dean McLean Vancouver - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens