Pubdate: Fri, 08 Apr 2016
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: David Krayden
Page: 8

HARM REDUCTION AN ORWELLIAN RESPONSE

The concept of harm reduction is the basis of the proposed Ottawa
insite.

Harm reduction might sound like a relatively mundane idea - providing
an environment that renders intrinsically dangerous acts and habits
safer - but its amplification and application over the past decade has
made harm reduction a synonym for addiction facilitation.

It has not only been applied to drug use but seemingly unrelated
ventures as prostitution as well.

Alcoholics can now experience controlled drinking during substance
abuse treatment. Regardless of the poison, the argument remains the
same: though the activity might not be advantageous, with the proper
structure, we can make it safer and save lives.

The liberals may have paved some good intentions here but arguably
harm reduction has gone off the road and into the ditch.

Before the injection site debate arose, Ottawa was no stranger to
another form of harm reduction that was also proposed in the interests
of public health but which clearly promoted illegal drug use.

The crack pipe program, whereby crack addicts could obtain "clean"
crack pipes instead of using "dirty" ones, was initiated by Ottawa
city council in 2005 but discontinued in 2007 after two years of
negative media reports and public outrage culminated in a motion to
terminate this social experiment.

Many people in Ottawa found the very idea of distributing crack pipes,
clean or otherwise, to addicts as outrageous. After all, here we were
facilitating illegal drug use at taxpayer expense! Was there something
wrong with this "solution" or had common sense just died in Ottawa?

Well, the provincial government, then as now, didn't much care for
common sense or the sensibilities of Ottawa residents. The McGuinty
government restarted the program with the urgency the Ontario Liberals
only apply to government waste and stupidity.

As with an injection site, the primary objection to providing "free"
crack pipes (free for the addict anyway) was that the city was
sanctioning and promoting an illegal and lethal habit. Are you really
reducing the spread of HIV (it is in fact impossible to know whether
fluctuations of disease rates are directly or indirectly a consequence
of "cleaner" drug use), or are you simply making it an easier choice
to smoke crack and end your life prematurely?

For most people, who haven't been indoctrinated by harm reduction
heresy, the answer is simple: safe injection sites aren't safe and
free crack pipes are neither free, nor do they make smoking crack
anything approaching safe.

Throughout the injection site debate, not only here in Ottawa but in
Toronto as well, both opponents and advocates have pointed to
Vancouver to support their arguments. What is the truth?

You will hear the same arguments from liberal academics and health
workers on the West Coast about how crime and disease are plummeting
because addicts can shoot up unmolested by police and under the
watchful eyes of medical attendants who will prevent an overdose.

But these fervent acolytes of social re-engineering rarely ever have
to live at ground zero of their social experiment. The people who do
reside there will tell you what happens when you create a critical
mass of drug abuse; how the adjacent streets are littered with drug
paraphernalia and lined with users; how the site itself acts as a
magnet to bring new addicts into the vicinity.

One national television network pontificated that "in less than two
years, addicts in the city of Ottawa could have a safe, clean
environment to do drugs."

How pleasant. Perhaps we can also provide a safe, clean environment
for a host of other toxic, debilitating and febrile activities that
the morally relativistic liberals imagine can be transformed into
acceptable pursuits.

For critics, this is political correctness gone mad; harm reduction
advocates are so intent upon minimizing the damage that they're
willing to sanitize or even ignore the problem - and for many people,
that's the fundamental disconnect with the concept.
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MAP posted-by: Matt