GLOVES OFF ON DRUGS

PROFESSOR Penington and his supporters would have us believe that it's OK to
take a poisonous, lethal substance such as heroin, as long as it's
administered in a healthy and sale environment to "minimise the harm".

I suggest that if the society we live in really wants to save the lives of
people who are slaves to this horrific lifestyle, they treat addicts as one
would treat a road-accident victim.

You would not ask for permission to treat them. An ambulance takes them to
an emergency room and you try to save their lives, whether they agreed or
not to the treatment.

In the same manner, addicts should not be given a choice for rehabilitation.
They should be treated as people who have a life-threatening illness and are
not capable of making a rational choice.

Let's take off the kid glove-approach and get serious. There are medical
treatments that have proved successful in setting addicts free from
addiction.

Even the old remedy of three days in a padded cell going cold turkey, as
painful as it could be, has to be better than a slow, miserable death that
heroin use brings.

And what about the safety of the general public?

For every addict there are thousands of innocent victims whose lives are
affected through violent crime, theft or intimidation in attempts to get
money to pay for their habits.

Injecting rooms do nothing to eliminate this problem.

Dennis Hirschfield, Canterbury