LIFE-LONG DRUGGIE SAYS PRISON'S NO ANSWER

Vancouver Granddad Says Jail Turns Addicts Into Hardened Criminals

Prison, Terry McKinney tells me, screws up your head so badly that
when you're on the outside, it's payback time: A confused and
off-track kid goes in, a slick, seasoned felon comes out.

So if Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks users and traffickers like
him will rush to change their stripes -- spooked by a $64-million
anti-drug plan that imposes must-do jail time -- he can forget it.

McKinney, a 59-year-old Vancouver granddad, has been a junkie for the
past 37 years; a regular in B.C.'s prisons after numerous convictions
for peddling heroin to bankroll what was a $1,000-a-day habit at the
peak of his intake.

The inmate who has done time is 10 times smarter, 10 times more
vicious and 10 times bigger, he says. They have nothing better to do
than form alliances, pump iron and plan more sophisticated crimes. The
first to befriend an offender when he's sprung are his jail buddies.

"And so it goes, generation after generation, same mistakes, same
approach from the politicians trying to keep addiction from
increasing. And what comes of it? The dealers get rich, the users get
dead and the cops stay on the treadmill.

"Meantime, a junkie runs off with roof materials for the city's
convention centre, soccer fields have no lights and veterans lucky
enough to get a decent burial have the brass plaques stolen off their
graves.

"I believe the current crop of judges saw enough of harsh sentencing
for drug crimes to realize it did nothing but ruin the addicts' lives
while, for the most part, they were harmless people addicted to
something bigger than they were."

McKinney was. Heroin is his master. Not the death of a wife from
drug-poisoning nor the threat of years in jail could clean him up.

"Yes, I knew the risks. I'd seen enough of my friends turn into
snivelling scum because they were dumb enough to think they wouldn't
get addicted. But I didn't care. I didn't allow myself to care because
then nothing could possibly hurt me. That was my brand of logic."

The flawed reasoning is apparent now, but it's too little, too
late.

McKinney contracted hepatitis C from shooting up and also developed a
chronic spinal infection that collapsed three discs in his back. The
good news is he's under the care of a doctor who prescribes him
methadone and morphine for pain.

As for today's youth, the only way to reach the errant ones is with a
mentor, an adult willing to be a friend and adviser, someone they can
trust and count on, he says. A labour-intensive step, for sure, but a
move McKinney says would have kept him from dealing the dope.

Cleaning up the adult addict is a lot trickier, he says. Not only does
the narcotic grip its victim, the drug culture and ritual take root as
well.

"The ritual of injecting, the use of the needle, is every bit as
addictive as the drug of choice. I can say, without fear of
contradiction, that if the ritual isn't factored into the treatment,
the plan will fail."

McKinney says the only viable fix is to put addiction and use in the
hands of the health ministry. Place wasted, hard-core druggies on a
monitored prescription program, legalize soft drugs and tax them to
the max, dedicating all the funds to health/drug services.

That, not jail, will send the homegrown and import dealers packing.