REDUCE HARM, HELP THE ADDICT

Drugs always have been and always will be part of human culture.

As long as there is a berry, powder, vine, root, or plant growing
somewhere in the world people will pay money to get their hands on it,
fall down on the floor and examine the textured ceiling in a catatonic
stupor for 14 straight hours.

It's not all fun and games, and the consequences, like anything in
life, can be grave.

It infuriates me that any form of any government under our flag has
not tried to make drug use safer for the user and for the community
and how the drug problem gets so cavalierly dumped on the cops and
courts.

This is deplorable of course, but around election time, the tune may
change but the dance always stays the same.

The biggest loser in this whole mess is the addict.

There is way too much attention focused on the addict.

I fail to see how any just or moral society can point their fingers
and blame the sick or the disturbed while mentioning nothing about
Johnny Lawyer, his Benz and his coke habit. We all know why.

We all know the answer as to why the media make documentaries and news
stories on East Hastings instead of West.

Our perception of addiction has become bankrupt. We only ever see that
man or woman in ratty clothes with a syringe stuck in his or her arm.

Alive or dead we aren't ever told, but Johnny Lawyer is never caught
like that and if he is, well, he simply doesn't smell as bad.

He has a home in the British Properties, he's an upstanding member of
the community, he coaches little league, so what if he does a little
blow?

We have manufactured a wall between functioning and non-functioning
addicts, between easy targets and stealthy targets and it's in our
nature to take the easy targets.

We seem to forgive alcoholism, no matter who gets busted, as a disease
that can be treated.

People can be saved from booze, and that is sheer and utter hypocrisy.
I'm embarrassed when people, good people, draw a line between the
drunk and the meth user.

Sure, there have been cases where the meth user steals your stereo,
but way more cases where the drunk has driven his own car and killed
people with it.

The view from here is this: People who are going to use, are going to
use until they don't want to anymore.

No amount of intervention, treatment facilities, detox and rehab is
going to work as long as the individual craves his addiction. We may
as well admit that, do what we can to help and concentrate all of our
efforts on eradicating the dealers from the face of our city.

Unfortunately, this would take an unprecedented effort between the
police, the courts, corrections, bylaw enforcement, private and public
companies working with federal, provincial and city governments, all
singing out of the same legalization hymnal.

It sounds impossible. It's not.

We just have to be willing to finally take aim at the stealthy
targets.

We have to prepare for setbacks, for losses and grey days, but in the
end, I can't think of any other approach, besides a holistic approach,
that even comes close to dealing with the ever-growing and lucrative
drug trade that thrives in our community.

Ask yourself if you are brave enough to speak for the wretched, to
shout when everyone asks you to be silent and to be silent while
everyone shouts around you.

[I paraphrased the last line from father poet and beautiful man,
Yevgeny Yevtushenko.]

Adam Dunbar writes occasionally for the Chilliwack Times.