NO EASY ANSWER TO PROBLEM OF ADDICTION

Insite, the safe injection sight for drug addicts, is proven to help
save lives and reduce harm to the community.

The initiative has the support and endorsement of medical
professionals, police and even recovering addicts, but the program may
soon have its exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
revoked, which means the doors will be closed and the project will
have to be scrapped.

Regardless of the federal government's decision, we still need to do
far more than help addicts inject safely if we plan on saving lives,
rebuilding communities and winning the war against drugs.

Addiction is a choice. Some people are opposed to that ideology
because they think it sounds accusatory, but the truth is the descent
into addiction starts the moment someone takes the initiative to put
drugs into their own body. It doesn't even matter if we call drug
dependency a disease or a decision, the simple fact is that addicts
are killing themselves and their communities, and something has to be
done to stop the damage.

The only way to truly save individuals and neighbourhoods from drugs
is to stop people from using at all. Insite has a good record of
referring current addicts to rehab and detox, but as a community we
have to come together and keep people from getting hooked in the first
place.

That means we have to educate our children about the use and dangers
of drug use, and we have to make sure our discussions are so
frightening that their impressionable minds fear drugs as the
horrifying monsters they truly are. The pressure for kids to try drugs
can certainly be strong, but it's easily trumped by good education.
When the time comes that our kids have to make a decision about
whether or not to take their first hit, their recollection of what
they were taught should be so powerful it makes them shake in their
shoes and run away.

We'll do our best, but some unfortunate souls won't say no and will
find themselves being pulled into the world of addiction. The drugs
they'll use are far more potent and addictive than anything in the
past, and in their pursuit of the higher high they will often exceed
the limits of human consumption and possibly die from an overdose.

Insite all but removes that risk, and also ensures addicts use clean
needles to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Research says the
Insite program is working, but it's still challenging for many to
comprehend how giving addicts a safe place to ingest chemicals that
contribute to their own destruction is the best way to help them.

Mainstream thinking still dictates that the most effective way to help
an addict is to get them off drugs completely, but Insite appears to
be effective even though it allows people to use the very thing that's
killing them. Insite doesn't sound logical, but it seems to be working.

So far, the well-trained medical staff has been able to revive the
hundreds of people who have overdosed, but what if an addict takes too
much and can't be brought back? Do we chalk up the death as just
another unfortunate statistic, or do we question the effectiveness of
Insite itself?

No one is ever going to personally blame medical staff if someone
overdoses, but what happens if a bad batch of heroin makes it to the
street and the number of deaths starts to exceed the number of people
who have been saved? Is the program still considered a success?

The answer to the complex drug problem won't easily be found, but if
we truly want to protect our future we need to come together and offer
a compassionate hand that gently pulls the needle out, and then slaps
the hand that tries to push it back in.