SAFETY OR ENABLING? DRUG POLICIES A TOUGH CALL

It's a tough call.

We don't envy the folks at Warmland House having to decide things like
drug policies. The arguments are similar to those that always surround
safe injection sites, which have been set up in larger cities so drug
addicts have somewhere they can go to get high where they can get
clean paraphernalia.

Without such sites users often share needles and are relegated to back
alleys where enemies that include violence and disease are far more
likely to find them.

But some argue providing them with safety and shielding them from some
of the more unsavory consequences of their behaviour makes them far
less likely to want to stop.

And who wants a safe injection site near their home, any more than
they want a crackhouse?

Likewise, we sympathize greatly with Lin Halliday, a woman who appears
to be trying to get her life together and move onwards and upwards.

Such is the aim of Warmland House: give a hand up to people who are living
on the street with the hope they will become productive members of our
Cowichan Valley communities.

She feels that Warmland House should not allow drug use within its
walls. It makes it harder, she argues, for those who want to get out
of that life.

Doubtless she is correct. When drugs and people using drugs are all
around you, it would be far more difficult to resist the temptation to
slide back into that cycle yourself.

Many who kick drug or alcohol habits end up having to find new friends
as well as new coping mechanisms, as the friends they had were the
ones they got high or drank with.

Every effort should be made to help those who want to kick the habit,
make it out.

But Warmland officials make a good point when they say that apartments
at Warmland House are somebody's home, and unless something dire is
going on they are entitled to some privacy and independence.

Many of these people have so little already, the last thing that would
be helpful is to take away their basic rights as well.

They would stop coming to the shelter, and a chance to reach out and
connect would be lost.

Further, having a clean, dry place to lay their heads seems to be
inspiring some to want something better for themselves. It's inspired
a number to head to treatment.

So, do we just leave people out in the cold, or not provide the safe
injection site, because we don't approve of the behaviour and don't
want to be seen as condoning it?

After all we don't want to enable addicts to continue their
self-destruction.

Or do we provide the care, in the hopes of saving some lives despite
our disapproval of their behaviour, offering an open door to something
better?