SAVING LIVES

INJECTING rooms have nothing to do with saying no to
heroin.

To say no,as if it contributes to the discussion, misses the whole
object of such facilities.

Injecting rooms are designed to save lives. This has happened wherever
they have been established. The rooms also reduce neighborhood nuisance.

Residents in the most-affected areas can be freed of stumbling upon an
injecting or overdosed addict at their front door. They do not have to
worry about their children bumping into needles in the doorways and
alleys where injecting takes place.

The outright rejection of injecting rooms by the secretary of
Residents 3000, Peter Faris, QC, and his like, derives from a
head-in-the-sand mentality which keeps up the pretence that because
tough laws exist people will not abuse substances.

He has said he doesn't give a damn if addicts die. Some of us
do.

Those responsible for the policies he has long espoused have blood on
their hands.

They will deny but cannot escape the reality that their utter failure
to contemplate realistic alternatives is the foremost obstacle to a
sensible and humane drug policy.