NO WAY TO FIGHT DRUGS

The latest idea for reducing the ill effects of intravenous-drug use in
Montreal is for authorities to set up places where users can inject
themselves. Staffing these legal shooting galleries would be nurses or
social workers.

The proposal, made by several workers in the field of drug-users' health,
has received cautious support from some doctors. They argue that these
special quarters could save lives. Staffers could promptly assist anyone
who had overdosed. Also, by providing hygienic conditions, these places
also could diminish the spread of HIV.

The concept, which proponents say has no precedent in North America, goes
considerably beyond the present practice of handing out free, sterile
needles to those who need them for the consumption of heroin and cocaine.
That program, jointly financed by Montreal and the province, leaves users
free to scatter and to inject themselves in privacy.

The new proposal would bestow on drug consumption the added boon of
outright hospitality. It's not hard to imagine the pressure to make the
surroundings congenial: pleasant furniture, air-conditioning in summer and
so on.

No one surely would want to make drug users suffer more than they already
do. But the problem is that such solicitous attention could give
intravenous-drug use legitimacy.

There's also the possibility that the area around a shooting gallery would
become a magnet for pushers. That, after all, is where their market would
be.

Instead of doing more to help people use drugs, society should concentrate
on helping people reduce their dependency on them. Existing programs have a
crying need for more resources. At last word, the waiting period here for
getting methadone treatment for heroin addiction was 18 months. An urgent
need also exists for more drug counseling.

In the last several years, heroin use has boomed in Montreal and cocaine is
still going strong. It is not by making drug use easier, more comfortable
and more sociable that authorities will discourage this tragic habit.