ADDICTS BRUTALIZE VICTIMS IN QUEST FOR HIGH

The Supreme Court of Canada decision requiring
Ottawa to keep open Insite, Vancouver's so-called
safe-injection site, is the culmination of years
of intense, taxpayer-financed lobbying by
hard-drug advocates, activist medical researchers and poverty-pimp
politicians.

With what I consider to be a constant stream of
doubtful evidence, they've convinced our liberal
judges that drug addiction is a public health
issue rather than one of personal choice and
private responsibility. It's been a triumph of ideology over reason.

Our courts have swallowed whole the claim by
=93harm-reduction=94 true-believers that drug addicts
are essentially helpless victims of a disease
with no real option other than to shuffle off
down to the nearest statesanctioned, shoot-'em-up facility.

The fact that these same addicts are invariably
victimizers, who harm those they rip off and
brutalize in their relentless quest for the next
high, doesn't cut any ice with our nation=92s
highest court and the remainder of the
Charter-rights-addicted, legal-services industry.

Friday's unanimous Supreme Court appeal ruling
was a foregone conclusion. Indeed, I'm surprised
it even raised the inconvenient truth that the
heroin, morphine, cocaine and other poisons
ingested at Insite are not dispensed under strict
medical guidelines in carefully controlled doses. No, siree.

They're street drugs that the Insite staff are
not supposed to handle, except to =93safely remove=94
any leftovers and hand them over to police.

It goes without saying that the substances
brought to Insite by users have been obtained
from a trafficker in an illegal transaction,=94 the
78-page ruling quoted the original trial judge as saying.

But if drug addiction really is a legitimate
illness, treating it with illegitimate drugs
doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, it=92s positively outrageous.

So, where do we go from here? Well, if you
believe the chest thumping from =93harm-reduction=94
cheerleaders, the landmark court ruling should
lead to similar injection sites all over hell's
half acre. All of them, however, will run into
the same basic problem, that of a taxpayer-funded
health facility using dirty, dangerous drugs
supplied by the criminal underworld.

Supervised injection sites may help a few
addicts, but they do little to curb the
continuing violence associated with B.C.'s
illegal drug trade. They may even encourage it.
And the Supreme Court ruling merely perpetuates the unsustainable status
quo.

So what's the solution? Well, I think radical change is needed.

And that should include the distribution of both
hard and soft drugs, such as marijuana, =AD or
their substitutes =AD through regular medical
channels, via doctors and pharmacists.

In other words, they should be dispensed in the
same way as painkillers, sleeping pills and other
potentially addictive medicines.=94

Certainly, such a change would inevitably mean
further expense for our public health system. But
those costs should be offset by savings in our
criminal justice system =AD keeping addicts out of
clogged courts and crowded jails.

If Canadians are convinced drug addiction is a
disease, then Ottawa and the provinces must bring
all drugs under the same health scrutiny and
control as any other disease-fighting prescription medicine.

Given how far we've come down our welfare state=92s
harm-reduction road, it's the only real fix available now.