MEDICAL PROBLEM, NOT CRIMINAL

LIKE MANY of your readers I too was saddened to read of three more
fatal heroin overdoses in Canberra last week (CT, July 22, p.3). The
likelihood that higher than usual purity was the cause makes one
question yet again why we persist in treating heroin addiction as a
criminal problem rather than a medical one. If we saw it purely as a
health problem there would already be safe injecting rooms where those
who have recently died might well have been treated in time. If heroin
were sold on prescription (as it was before 1953) its purity could be
effectively controlled and most overdoses avoided. Eventually, I
believe, a significant percentage of users would tire of letting their
life be dominated by a chemical - and decide to enter a detox or rehab
(then stay as long as necessary). Sadly for those who died last week,
this is no longer an option.

We are more than happy, it seems, to treat the consequences of other
risk taking behaviours as medical problems (helicoptering fallen rock
climbers, bypassing the clogged arteries of the over indulgent or
battling smoking-related cancers) but it seems that heroin users are
in a category all by themselves. They, alas, offended against the
eternally unsuccessful "war on drugs'' and must suffer accordingly. On
top of this, they have to endure the selectively self righteous who
assure them in your columns that their problems are self-inflicted and
that they deserve to die. I await with interest (and alarm) the
application of such dismal charity to all other risk takers in our
community.