ALL DRUG ABUSERS HAVE A 'PERSONALITY DISORDER'

Re: Start with needles and clean up downtown (Bruce Strachan column July
17).

I, like so many others, have witnessed and written about the downtown
drug scene and the harm it does to our city.

Therefore, I was glad to read Bruce Strachan's column in the July 17
Citizen calling for a concrete commitment by our politicians to seek
tough solutions to the never-ending problem of George Street and environs.

The current issue of the B.C. Medical Journal features an article by a
Dr. David J. Brant, at one time the clinical director of the Narcotic
Addiction Foundation. This article is aimed at the Insite project in
Vancouver, but applies just as easily to our harm reduction approach.

Medically speaking, Dr. Brant's opinion is that all drug-abusing
persons, regardless of what drug, demonstrate a personality disorder.
Heroin addicts are regarded as having a sociopathic personality
disorder. It is his opinion that there is no easy treatment, but
"behavioral modification" can produce results, although it is always
"intense, protracted, and one-on-one". And it is his opinion that very
few addiction-treatment personnel understand that methadone is meant
solely to take the edge off withdrawal symptoms, as opposed to
replacing the drug of choice.

Finally, Dr. Brant quotes one of his mentors, a medical director at
the psychiatric hospital in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, who
observed that all personality disorders are characterized by a failure
to mature, or " grow up."

I have no doubt that there are many arguments, pro and con, to Dr.
Brant's opinion, and not being a medical person, I cannot speak with
any authority. But common sense tells me that a needle exchange, which
allows addicts to continue to shoot up their drug of choice has no
element of demanding personal responsibility. Rather, it falls upon
all the non-addicted population of Prince George to assume
responsibility, be it financial or otherwise, for the sake of harm
reduction.

Unfortunately, harm reduction only applies to those who are not
expected to assume responsibility, but does not apply to the community
as a whole. There is something inherently wrong with this equation.

Jeannette Paterson

Prince George