DRUG ADDICTS NEED AN INJECTION OF TOUGH LOVE

What's so sickening about the battle against drug addiction is the way in
which so many of our government policy makers appear to have thrown in the
towel.

Instead of making it harder for addicts to maintain their habits -- as we
do for smokers -- they seem determined to make it easier for them to remain
junkies.

Indeed, as London Daily Mail writer Melanie Phillips makes clear, the
policy appears to have switched from getting addicts off drugs to keeping
them on them indefinitely.

So-called "harm reduction" has become a cover not only for legalizing
drugs, but for doling them out at the public's expense.

Well-meaning members of the public are unaware of what is happening
because, in my view, it's being done in a sneaky fashion.

For example, there's a convenient myth going around that our government
simply wants to introduce safe-injection sites in downtown Vancouver.

I say "convenient," because such sites are clearly more politically
saleable than what's also planned, namely the provision of free heroin to
hardened addicts.

Provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall tells me he has recommended
both safe-injection sites (as touted by Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell) and
medical trials in which addicts who are "refractory," or resistant to other
treatment, are given free heroin.

Kendall claims both have been effective in Europe. "That's why I've made
recommendations supporting assisted trials of heroin for refractory addicts
and why I've made the suggestion that we should do clinical trials of
supervised injection sites," he said.

Other proponents of the free-heroin trials, whose research protocol has
already been approved by the University of B.C., are cagey about their plans.

They seem to realize this could upset the public, and don't want any public
debate about it, at least until it's been OK'd by Ottawa.

UBC researcher Dr. Martin Schechter, who is reported to be heading the
proposed Vancouver trial, did not return my calls.

But, as outlined last year by Montreal researcher Dr. Suzanne Brissette,
nearly 500 addicts in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal will be divided into
two groups. One will be given methadone and the other heroin.

Brissette acknowledges such experiments raise many ethical problems. But,
she says, it's the responsibility of the researchers to "try to convince
policy-makers that this kind of treatment should be pursued, if it proves
effective."

In other words, it's clear where the medical community stands: Give the
addicts the illegal drugs.

However, the studies also involve political risk, of the kind Health
Minister Anne McLellan and the federal Liberals don't need right now, with
Kyoto and gun control on their plate.

And Vancouver police Const. Gerry Wickstead, who patrols the Downtown
Eastside, believes we're putting cart before the horse. He says we need far
more treatment facilities for addicts before even thinking of handing them
free heroin.

Besides, why are we singling out heroin addicts for special treatment?
Wickstead says many more people die from cigarette smoking than from drug
overdoses.

Also, it's harder to kick a cigarette habit than heroin and cocaine: "So
why aren't we giving out free cigarettes then?"

Kendall claims the best treatment for heroin addicts is usually methadone
and counselling: "And then when people are stable enough after a period of
time, they can move to abstinence."

I'd try abstinence from the start. I'd ditch the idea of free heroin and
even free methadone. I'd also break up the government-created ghetto that
is the Downtown Eastside.

Hard-drug addicts don't need a free ride. They need tough love. After all,
there's a good reason why these drugs are illegal in the first place.