SEX, DRUGS AND DOUBLESPEAK RAMPANT IN THE BIG CITY

It's a big week for doublespeak in B.C. As North America's first "safe
injection site" opens in Vancouver, the city opens up another can of worms
with a proposal to create a new zone for home-based "sex-trade workers."

These terms, "safe injection site" and "sex trade worker," are similar in
the way they distort public discussion. Each takes a questionable opinion
and tries to pass it off as a fact.

Is there any truly "safe" place to inject heroin or cocaine that has been
purchased on the street? No, of course there isn't, but these days almost
everyone talks as if there is. And once the term becomes established,
anyone who opposes this approach is suddenly portrayed as opposed to safety.

"Sex trade worker" promotes the notion that prostitution is a legitimate
and acceptable way of making a living. There might be many people who
believe that but it's still an opinion rather than a fact.

A contrary opinion was expressed in an open-line radio show last weekend.
The caller suggested prostitution is no more a legitimate line of work than
drug dealing is.

Both of these activities go on in communities all over the country but the
discussion takes place mostly in Vancouver, where it tends to be more obvious.

Smaller towns engage in a more subtle hypocrisy, keeping the prostitutes
and drug dealers from getting too visible so most people can pretend it
doesn't happen here.

Vancouver has reached the logical conclusion of the culture of
victimization. According to this belief system, prostitutes sell their
bodies because they are addicted to drugs and addiction is a disease. So
"sex trade workers" will be among those who use the "safe injection site."

Is it possible that people choose prostitution because it appears easier
than real work? Or that drug users choose to get high rather than suffer
the pain of quitting?

Yes, it is.