INNOCENCE SAKE

A syringe floating in a neighbourhood ditch is cause for concern.

More than one, or five, by an elementary school, is cause for action.

We don't know where the syringes came from, what they were used for
or how they got there.

But knowing what we do about drugs and disease, and curious children
walking home from school - no matter what there parents tell them -
just cleaning up the syringes isn't enough.

It's unlikely that some diabetic discarded the syringes in the ditch
near Yennadon elementary school.

Drug use is a sad reality. The fight to control it, as well as the
production and distribution of drugs, is an ongoing battle, a
seemingly impossible one to win. A Maple Ridge man was arrested
earlier this year with a pharmacy of drugs and boxes of syringes in his SUV.

Legalizing drugs is a simple suggestion that offers no solution to
the underlying problem of addiction.

Injection sites at least offer a way to keep syringes off the
streets, away from curious children and other drug users who care
more about getting high than possible infection.

At the very least, an anonymous exchange program offers a place to
get clean syringes and get rid of dirty ones.

Maple Ridge doesn't have such a program. Starting one is something
the resurrected crystal meth task force could undertake.

If the syringes ended up in the ditch once, they could again, or some
other ditch or park or parking lot. What's to think whoever left them
there in the first place cares enough about anyone else, or could
think straight enough to get rid of the syringes in a safer manner.

Somebody has to do it, for innocence sake.