GOOFY MORAL IMPERATIVE

Editorials like "Drug injection sites counter-productive," (
Northumberland Today, May 18) should be stamped with the warning
'Danger: Contains Ideologically driven Moralizing'.

If anything, anything at all, in the position taken by Mr. Chambers
had any basis in fact, then countries like, oh, say Switzerland, which
has gone well beyond safe injection sites in dealing with addictions
as public health issues instead of an excuse for self-aggrandizing
moral crusades, would have reputations much different than they do.
Instead, those countries have the 'problems' of heroin addicts living
into old age and needing beds in old age homes; of addicts being able
to hold down jobs as bankers and lawyers and therefore creating
employment issues for new grads.

What facts are associated with Mr Chambers's position? What we live
with (and what addicts die with and of) now, and what those south of
the border live with as a result of the attempts to make public policy
fit some goofy moral imperative that's as disassociated from the facts
as it can be without inviting the fairies and wizards in to solve all
our problems for us.

Derek Blackadder

Cobourg