DRUGGIES NOT GOV'T PROBLEM

I had to comment on the march this week in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside to mark 2,000 overdose deaths.

I find it a curious notion that drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside
hold the B.C. government responsible for the overdose deaths of their
fallen friends.

I can't imagine that members of government buy the offending drug for
the addicts, place it in needles and forcibly shoot it into their veins.

What I can imagine is every one of the 9,000 junkies in the Downtown
Eastside area make the decision to beg, borrow or steal the money to
buy the drugs that they shoot into their bodies five or six times a
day. To me, it is very clear that injecting heroin is something these
addicts choose for themselves.

Yes, the 2,000 overdose deaths were all "preventable
deaths."

Preventable not by the government of B.C., but by those same
drug-using individuals.

Is it not time the drug addicts of the Downtown Eastside (and
elsewhere in B.C.) stood up and took responsibility for their own actions?

That the government of B.C. spends $50 million on drug and alcohol
programs out of the health ministry's budget of nearly $8 billion is
incredible enough.

In my opinion, this is $50 million too much to spend on individuals
who choose to abuse their bodies, abuse the British Columbia
health-care system and abuse the tax dollars of Joe Public - people
like myself who earn an honest wage to put food on our tables, a roof
over our heads and clothes on our back.

I say, put this $50 million to better use helping people with diseases
such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes or heart disease. This
money can better help people with disease afflicting them by chance,
not by choice.

I do not have sympathy for the 2,000 individuals who died from drug
overdoses in B.C. since 1992, nor do I have sympathy for future
overdose deaths that will surely occur in B.C. due to the bad judgment
of individuals who will not take responsibility for their own decisions.

Perhaps march speaker Lisa McDonald shouldn't ask those in power "What
kind of wake-up call do you need?"

Instead, take the 9,000 heroin-addicted people in the Downtown
Eastside to the "Killing Fields" of Oppenheimer Park, show them the
2,000 makeshift crosses erected to mark overdose deaths and ask: "What
kind of wakeup call do you need?"

Lisa van der Zwart, North Vancouver