Pubdate: Thu, 07 Aug 2008
Source: Orangeville Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2008 Orangeville Citizen
Contact:  http://www.citizen.on.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2529
Author: Claire Hoy
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/insite (Insite)

A HARMFUL AND RIDICULOUS CONCEPT

Here's a concept: Your closest friend is a raging  alcoholic. He/she 
can't hold a job, can't look after  his family, can't really look 
after himself, and has  only one real - and constant - interest; i.e. 
where  does the next drink come from.

So, as a humane person and true friend, what do you do  to help? 
Easy. Get a government grant, build a 
little  bedroom/bathroom/sitting room on the side of your  house, and 
ply him with all the booze he wants.

What's that you say? Feeding his habit won't help him  but will only 
make him worse. He'll never get rid of  his addiction but will only 
spiral deeper and deeper  into a cesspool of despair.

Only a complete wingnut would come up with a scheme to  enable his 
addiction rather than help him break out of  it.

All of which, of course, is true. The entire concept is  ridiculous. 
Not to mention harmful.

Which leads to the ongoing national debate on a  different addiction, 
i.e., hard drugs, in Vancouver,  pitting the so-called "harm 
reduction" advocates -  those who want Ottawa to keep funding that 
city's free  drug haven for addicts, against those who believe that 
enabling addicts to feed their addiction doesn't do a  thing to help 
them get off the needle.

As you'd expect, most of the mainstream media in this  country has 
sided with the champions of Insite,  Vancouver's costly injection 
site, and attacked Prime  Minister Stephen Harper and Health Minister 
Tony  Clement for their refusal to renew funding which was - 
surprise, surprise - initially provided by a previous  Liberal administration.

Harper, Clement et al are routinely attacked by the  Insite backers 
for basing their opposition to  continuing the cesspool which 
Vancouver's drug area has  become on their own "ideology," rather 
than on the  so-called "facts" of the case.

The "facts," of course, are those details which Insite  apologists 
consider acceptable, based mainly on a  series of studies conducted 
by people with a direct  interest in maintaining this failed experiment.

Just as an aside, this very Canadian habit of accusing  people of 
relying on "ideology" has long bemused this  writer. It is leveled by 
those who also are exercising  their own "ideology" yet, because they 
disagree with  it, it becomes a bad thing for say the Tories to be 
ideological but a good thing for their critics to be  ideological. 
That's because - as the critics see it at  least - Tory ideology 
doesn't have good intentions,  while anti-Tory ideology is the salt 
of the earth.

But back to Insite.

The supporters of that program claim that providing  clean needles 
for the addicts actually saves lives. It  may prolong the lives of 
some junkies, but regular  shooting-up of hard drugs, whether the 
needles are  clean or not, ultimately will kill them.

The only realistic way to save their lives - and even  this is not 
guaranteed - is to get them into rehab  immediately and get them off the junk.

But there's little time and even less money in the  Vancouver 
experiment to provide beds for  rehabilitation. Instead, most of the 
cash is used  facilitating the junkies lethal habits.

The champions of Insite claim that their program is one  of "harm reduction."

Nonsense. What they are saying in effect is that these  people are 
going to kill themselves anyway, but by  offering them a place to 
shoot up we're reducing the  overall harm on society.

This is seen as the "humane" approach to drugs, while  those - like 
this writer - who think the emphasis  should be on getting them off 
the drugs completely,  rather than continuing to feed their habit, 
are seen as  hard-hearted, uncaring Neandrathals completely 
blinded  by their warped "ideology."

You don't have to be a medical doctor, a scientist, a  social worker 
or even a left-leaning politician to be  able to understand that 
helping somebody continue their  lethal addiction isn't exactly a big 
help to their  well-being.

Yet that's what the advocates of so-called "harm  reduction" want us 
to believe; that they are following  the right course of action and 
anybody who dares  disagree with their "wisdom" is a cad. Or worse.

Despite the obvious idiocy of facilitating addicts -  and thanks to 
an extremely sympathetic Vancouver media  - the politically popular 
thing for Ottawa to do would  bed to continue to fund this absurd program.

But the right thing to do would be to junk the entire  concept and 
instead put the money into serious  rehabilitation programs.

To be sure, not everybody can be or wants to be  rehabilitated: but 
even if it just saves a few lives,  it's preferable to funding death 
by a thousand needles.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom