DRUG PROPOSAL SENDS WRONG MESSAGE

San Francisco is considering opening a room where drug addicts can
inject themselves with heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the
supervision of nurses.

Few ideas can be considered more foolish than this one.

Drug use is illegal. Governments should do nothing to encourage or
even tolerate it.

Yet this is the ultimate example of a mixed message, where drug use
is condemned at the same time it is tolerated. It is, in effect,
giving up the effort to fight the insidious and awful damage drugs do
to people by giving them a place to do it.

Yes, drugs might not be sold in the building where the injections
would occur. Does anyone doubt that they would be sold in the
immediate area? Drug dealers aren't stupid; they would go where the
addicts are to spread their poison.

No city should consider emulating San Francisco, and that city would
be far better served by fighting drugs than by tolerating and encouraging them.