NEEDLE EXCHANGE AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER

For Those Who Live Nearby, It's A Daily Horror That Authorities Ignore

I write out of concern that the desperation, exhaustion and
fearfulness of the citizens who work and live near the Cormorant
Street needle exchange has not come through clearly enough.
Frustration can come across as insensitivity, a lack of compassion or
a kind of NIMBY attitude, which would be very misleading.

Many of us who encounter the unhappy souls who struggle with
addiction are not unsympathetic to their plight. I work regularly
with the addicted, the homeless and the mentally ill in our province's prisons.

For those of us who observe the devastation of a neighbourhood in the
name of a social experiment, resentment is focused not on the
unfortunates, but on those who planned and implemented this disaster,
including our mayor and council. We are exhausted and outraged by
their failure to deal with the unsurprising consequences of simply
providing needles to a group of people who need much more.

It is the restraint of those who have tolerated this abandonment of
civic responsibility that has kept things from getting out of control.

Let me provide one example, a mild one. Not long ago, a man barged
into my office, demanding to use the washroom. Having been burned by
acceding to a similar demand in the past that resulted in needles and
blood in my washroom, I refused and asked him to leave. He did,
walked outside and then urinated on my door, aiming at the door handle.

Consider my options. Should I call the police? Or physically push him
off my property, risking being doused by urine or stabbed by a
needle? Should I risk a shouting match and possible retaliation?

So he walked away smirking, with no fear of any consequences. I
washed the door before my next patient arrived. This on a day that
started with me scooping diarrhea embedded with needles off my front steps.

Used needles, human feces, discarded underwear, assorted condoms and
other unsanitary byproducts of addiction are frequently deposited on
properties in the neighbourhood. After earlier protests, the city
installed a "porta-potty" outside the needle exchange. That lasted
but a few days, apparently because of the refusal of those who have
to clean the toilets to deal with the needles and other paraphernalia
jammed into them.

Trained workers understandably refused to face the health risks, yet
citizens are left to their own devices.

We have asked for toilets, increased policing, assistance in regular
cleaning or tax relief so that we can hire our own crews and private
security. Our pleas have gone nowhere and the mayor has not responded
to my last letter.

In it, I have told him that if the lawsuit over the injection site
fails, my neighbours and I will have no choice but to erect tall
fences topped with barbed wire along our streets. This is what it has
come to in our once-beautiful city; citizens are left to wall
themselves off, prison-like, in a downtown area.

Since I spend a good part of my work week in prisons, it is not
especially harsh for me, but for a 70-year-old pensioner who grew up
in a city where she once walked fearlessly, it is utterly disheartening.

I am outraged by the complacency of those who seek power and
responsibility and then do nothing when faced with a crisis.

I work here, but many senior citizens, some handicapped, live here.
Many are unable to sleep at night, never mind take a walk. They are
intimidated by the arguments and yelling, the confrontations and
their increasing fears of violence.

The fears of those who bear the brunt of this disaster are not
exaggerated or misplaced. The needle exchange is a gathering place
for addicts and the predators that they inevitably attract. It is the
latter group that is becoming increasingly prominent and more confrontational.

Drug dependence, especially on short-acting opiates, creates
desperate cravings, often several times a day. There is a clear
relationship between substance abuse and criminality, including acts
of violence.

There are three broad ways in which alcohol and drugs influence crime
and violence. The first is physiological, through a direct effect on
mental functioning, when disinhibition of behaviour, including
aggressive behaviour, is common. The second influence is due to the
financial needs of the addict. Finally, there is the "business"
aspect of addiction, the turf wars between dealers and others who
prey on addiction.

By funnelling a large proportion of the city's drug-related crime and
disorder into a small neighbourhood, those responsible for this
disaster have absconded from their responsibility for follow-through
with services for the addicts, protection from the predators they
attract and basic services for the citizens left to cope with the
crime, filth and public disorder.

The "service" of providing needles ends before sundown when the
needle exchange shuts down, leaving the addicted with no support,
supervision, food or water, protection from predators, shelter or toilets.

Where do the politicians and planners think these people go to shoot
up, steal money for their next hit or next meal, sleep, urinate, rant
and rave, intimidate, vent their fury against the society they
believe has abandoned them and destroy property and peace-of-mind?

Invited to bring their suffering and their rage to a particular spot,
then left to their own devices, they inflict their despair and their
frenzy on a small group of citizens who have been left to cope with
the predictable consequences of "injecting" a crime-prone subculture
into what was once a beautiful, pleasant and safe neighborhood.

Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe is a forensic psychiatrist whose office is in
the Cormorant Street neighbourhood.