ADDICTED TO THE SIMPLE IDEA

It has been weeks since Mayor Larry O'Brien declared a war on
anything. We've come to miss it.

There have been wars against garbage, pigeons, Ducks, property-tax
increases, transit proposals, you name it. It's hard to find an
explosive situation that doesn't require another mayoral salvo. Now
His Worship has taken up arms against drugs.

"This is not a fight," Mr. O'Brien said this week. "This is a war."

Earlier in the week in an interview before the mayor's declaration of
hostilities, Dr. David Salisbury, the chief medical officer of
health, said he had no use for a U.S.-style war on drugs. Why?
Because the arrests, the border patrolling for smugglers, the
draconian laws, well, they just don't work. It's not as if the drug
war hasn't had the time to succeed. Drug use is as bad as it always
has been south of the border.

So Dr. Salisbury, who granted a bit of an exit interview because he
is leaving his post on May 5, says we need another course.

You see, according to the doctor, the problems of drugs in our city's
core result from mental illness. Studies show that about 80 per cent
of the addicted suffer from some form of mental illness, usually
resulting from physical or sexual abuse as a child. They are in pain,
mental anguish, and they turn to drugs to ease the pain. Dr.
Salisbury doesn't believe the 80-per-cent figure that studies
maintain. He thinks it is 100 per cent.

Do we really want to declare war on the mentally ill?

Dr. Salisbury says the nature of the drug problem, and accordingly
its visibility, has changed. He doesn't believe there are an
increasing number of addicts.

Previously, injection drug users were not in your face. They shot up,
then collapsed some place. However, the big problem today is crack
cocaine. And that, Dr. Salisbury says, creates an agitated,
hyper-active addict. They're not very nice. This is not your
passed-out-in-the-back-of-an-alley drunk. This is a mentally ill
person jacked up on as many as 20 hits of cocaine a day. It's
incredibly addictive, creating massive needs. The last thing they are
thinking about is putting a needle or pipe in a safe place. They're
looking for their next hit, each one costing about a bargain-basement $3.

So the new addict is in your face. He or she wants your change, your
wallet, or your new high-definition television in the rec room to
pawn. The success of the ByWard Market brings mainstream Ottawa
face-to-face with the ugly drug addiction of Rideau Street. There are
needles and crack pipes around. Buttoned-down Ottawa is appalled. But
maybe that's a good thing, Dr. Salisbury concedes. The city will seek
a solution.

The doctor defends clean needle and pipe programs. The drug problem
was there long before the government-sponsored drug implements hit
the street. They cut down on harm and the spread of disease, not just
on Rideau Street, but into the community as a whole.

What is needed to reduce the drug problem is a way to get at the root
causes of addiction. And that has little to do with needles or pipes
or arrests. It has everything to do with addressing the mental
problems of the users. A new way, not an illicit, narcotic way, must
be found to ease the addicts' pain. And that, Dr. Salisbury says,
requires compassion. This compassion is all the more difficult
because the addict is, frankly, not a very nice person. Thus Ottawans
need to muster all the compassion they can find.

War? No. Compassion? Yes. It is easy to be tough on the maladjusted,
the weak, the poor.

It is too bad our interview and this column were hijacked by events
this week such as the musings of the mayor and the problems of the
addicted. For Dr. Salisbury says the biggest health problem in our
community is not drugs, far from it. No, it's obesity. Our
consumption of sugary, calorie-rich soda pop is skyrocketing. Type 2
diabetes, a disease of 50-year-old men, is being treated in
youngsters at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. They face a
lifetime of drugs. The human body, built to consume raw meat and
vegetables, is processing junk. In addition to the obesity issue, Dr.
Salisbury had lots of good things to say about the accomplishments of
public health in Ottawa.

But unfortunately, we find ourselves addressing drugs.

If there is a role for the mayor in this mess, it is to bring
together the experts -- understandably he is not one -- such as
motivated public-health officials, our engaging, energetic police
Chief Vernon White, shelter workers, community health centres and
other stakeholders in a real effort to reduce the number of addicts
in this city. If as a community we choose to do this, it will be
difficult, slow, frustrating and expensive. There are no easy answers
to this very complicated problem. If there were, the very smart
people in the field would have solved the issue long ago. This is no
place for johnny-come-latelies.

There was never a time for simple solutions to municipal problems and
the chaos at city hall today reflects that. The woes in the civic
realm cannot be solved with rhetoric and publicity stunts.