WE NEED MORE DRUG TREATMENT CENTRES

Editor, the News:

I'm writing in regard to drug addiction in our community and country.
Being a former addict for more than 30 years, I know the horrible
consequences and harm caused by addiction.

I am, however, shocked and angered by one of the pillars of the
so-called Harm Reduction Initiative. I am shocked that the provincial,
federal and some community governments are supporting the continued
addiction of addicts by supplying them with needles and places to
shoot their drugs.

Add to that a federally funded initiative called NAOMI (North American
Opiate Medication Initiative). It consists of supplying 470 heroin
addicts in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal with heroin and methadone
at a cost of more than $8 million.

How can supplying drugs, needles and government-sponsored shooting
galleries help addicts quit the drugs that are killing them?

Imagine there's a fire and the fire department arrives to put out the
fire and pours gasoline on it. That is the same rational as trying to
help addicts quit drugs by giving them drugs, needles and places to
shoot their drugs.

T. Dalyrimple of the Associated Press wrote in 1997: "There is a
progression in the minds of people; first the unthinkable becomes
thinkable, and then it becomes an orthodoxy whose truth seems so
obvious that no one remembers that anyone thought differently."

I can't help wondering how many addicts could be helped out of their
addictions if the $8 million currently being used to supply drugs,
needles and government-sponsored shooting galleries was instead used
to fund treatment centres.

Loring Anderson

Maple Ridge