TIME FOR NEW DRUG SOLUTIONS

No sense in doing the same thing over and over if it only fails.

"It's not the heroin that kills you, it's the lifestyle." ­ Sgt. Dan
Parker, Victoria Police

How about this as a working definition of stupidity: Doing the same thing
over and over again, even though it doesn't produce the desired result.

That's what we're doing with our attempts to halt alcohol and drug
addiction, as vividly reported by columnist Jody Paterson in her five-part
series on the problems at Victoria's Holiday Court Motel.

We arrest addicts, we jail them, we stigmatize them as inferior human
beings, we force them into the margins of society, we make it hard for them
to get adequate food or housing or jobs, so they steal and/or prostitute
themselves to get the money to buy the drugs, they lose their health, they
get more and more depressed, more and more dependent on their fix for a few
moments' happiness ­ and then we wonder why people stay addicted.

Well, this approach isn't working. Not only isn't it working, it's making
matters worse. We've got more addicts in Victoria now than ever, and the
number is growing, not declining.

Why? Society still labels people who get involved with drugs as weak-willed
lacking in moral fibre. And there's no doubt that getting addicted to any
substance, drug or alcohol, is a huge life mistake.

But with many other mistakes in life, the social and criminal consequences
aren't as destructive. Basically, the court system itself pushes addicts
towards the shady margins of society, into contact with other addicts and
the people who live off them so that their lives can only get worse, not
better. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that draws in more and more
victims, and the problem grows.

Non-users are also victims of this vicious cycle as some addicts turn to
theft to feed their habits. After Switzerland switched to a harm reduction
strategy on heroin, the crime rate dropped by 60 per cent. By one estimate,
70 per cent of Canada's crime is addiction-related in some way.

Is there a solution? An easy one, no. But anything's got to be an
improvement on the system we have now. Some possible directions:

Taking a cue from some European countries, Vancouver is moving toward
creating safe places where addicts can shoot up. It's hoped this will at
least take them off the streets, reduce the risks of bad drugs or infected
needles, and open the doors to other forms of treatment. That city also has
heavy-duty buildings created as housing especially for addicts.

If we must involve addicts in the judicial system, then another possibility
is drug courts, where sentence is rehabilitation treatment rather than a
jail term. These have been extensively tried in the U.S., and are generally
more successful than the punitive approach. But this approach won't work if
the detox and rehabilitation facilities aren't available or overloaded, as
they are now in B.C., so more resources would have to go in that direction.

Legalization and government distribution of drugs might help by reducing
the power of the criminal element whose aim is more users, not fewer.

Ultimately, we might have to make drugs available to hard-core addicts with
no desire to change, coupled with public education about the harmful
effects of addiction to discourage others from going that route.

Above all, we need to change our attitudes toward a strategy of
harm-reduction rather than punishment for addicts. We've turned a medical
and psychological problem into a criminal problem; instead of ex-addicts
we've created criminals. This is stupid.

Even the police, currently society's front-line troops against the drug
trade, are fed up. "We've tried it this way for a while," says Sgt. Dan
Parker of the Victoria police. "I personally haven't seen a lot of change.
So maybe we should try something else."

Yes, we should.

Alan and Eleanor Randell Victoria, BC, V8N 6E3, Canada