SAFE-INJECTION SITE DEMONSTRATORS ARE SUFFERING FROM SERIOUS SELF-DENIAL

I am completely flummoxed by the idea of hard-core addicts picketing
MP David Emerson's office to protest the possible closure of
Vancouver's safe-injection site.

Those who inject filth purchased from an illegal drug trade deserve
nothing from society. They are a small, intransigent group who are
being rewarded for bad behaviour.

This kind of demonstration is denial run rampant.

Street-level, hard-core addicts are too often leeches who deal and
steal, beg and harass to feed their addiction.

Injecting poisonous drugs is a social taboo that few would choose to
flaunt publicly. These are exhibitionist users, there for the
freebees and the attention.

Instead of demonstrating, these self-indulgent and self-destructive
individuals should be actively seeking treatment and solutions for
the problems that control their lives. Safe-injection sites merely
encourage and condone illegal and suicidal behaviours. If these
people want to play Russian roulette with a needle, they should do it
on their own time.

Detox and treatment centres are another thing entirely, for they help
people with a desire to stop using, people who have reached a point
of desperation and are ready to ask for help to change.

This is where public money should be spent, offering a supportive
atmosphere, with counselling and medical assistance to addicts who
want to beat their addiction.

Outpatient programs like methadone clinics reduce dosages gradually
until the addict is eventually weaned off drugs.

These programs, while they certainly have their limits, have helped
start many addicts onto the path of recovery, enabling them to get
jobs and rejoin society

The protesters, of course, are a tangible symptom of a greater
problem: A massive hidden iceberg of non-skid row addicts at all
levels of Canadian society.

Obvious addictions like alcoholism and drugs, as well as such other
forms of addiction as gambling, sex and food, cripple lives and
families in every social strata: Teenagers and adults who use
recreationally and get hooked, abuse victims who deal with shame and
confusion by using; doctors who deal with stress by self-medicating,
police officers and social workers who deal with tragedy by day and
drink in private at night.

All of society would benefit from investment in our people in the
form of increased alcohol and drug counselling, more detox
facilities, short- and long-term treatment and rehabilitation
centres, abuse counselling and adult education and re-entry training.

The self-proclaimed victims demonstrating at Emerson's office suffer
abuse only at their own hands, and suffer only from delusions of
grandeur. They are willing to protest closure of a safe-injection
site, but do not seek a way out of a self-destructive lifestyle.

Can we respect this as a cry for help? Definitely not!

But maybe we should be looking at the larger picture.