DRUG CLINICS TREAT A HEALTH PROBLEM, THEY DON'T ROMANTICIZE ADDICTION

Re: Finally some hope in AIDS wars, Aug. 12.

Margret Kopala's column is more than a little too reverent of
Theodore Dalrymple's thesis in Romancing Opiates, that harm-reduction
projects, such as the Insite safe injection site, are "inherently
infantilizing" in that they protect people from the consequences of
their own bad behaviour.

That "we should definitely close the clinics that institutionalize
bad romantic ideas" is beyond dispute. The problem is, I don't know
of any. Addiction is anything but a romantic situation, and no amount
of Mr. Dalrymple's sophistry can change that. Clinics to reduce its
harm are nothing more than sound social and health policy.

If Ms. Kopala and Mr. Dalrymple were right, we would have to
eliminate all care given to those who smoked all their lives and are
now suffering from lung cancer. To do otherwise would be to
infantilize, to protect against irresponsible behaviour, would it not?

Jerry Paradis,

North Vancouver, B.C.