SHOOT-UP SITES DON'T HELP USERS GET OFF DRUGS

Victoria is the second city in B.C. to get in line for the brave new world
of "safe injection sites," as they are persistently referred to in the
mainstream media.

If it goes ahead, our quaint old capital will also be the second city in
Canada to embrace this trendy European strategy. Or North America for that
matter, since so far only Vancouver has taken the plunge. Once this
questionable bit of social engineering spreads to two cities, look for it to
pop up in other B.C. communities that have a significant hard drug problem,
which is to say most of them.

The idea of inviting junkies off the street to a nurse-supervised, clinical
environment was nurtured for years in the hothouse of Vancouver politics,
where the last election was decided mainly on urgent demands to "do
something" about the horror show of dealers and dopers haunting the streets
of Vancouver. Like many debates in our largest city, this one develops in a
fog of euphemisms and jargon that are calculated to avoid the tough
questions.

The term "safe injection site" isn't just a euphemism. It's an outright lie.
You'll notice that doctors and senior bureaucrats say "supervised injection
site." They're not foolish enough to call these places safe. The heroin or
cocaine that is used there is bought from the same street dealers who have
always provided it, and there are no efforts to test its potency, its purity
or for that matter its drain cleaner or mouse poison content.

Massive expenditure of public funds creates a superficial perception of
cleaner streets that pays off at the polls.

MP Randy White, a long-time critic of injection sites, pointed out last year
that overdose deaths actually went up after InSite opened in Vancouver.
Billy Weselowski, who runs abstinence-based treatment programs in the Lower
Mainland, said he hadn't received a single referral from InSite.

InSite officials now say that between March and August of 2004, they made
262 referrals to addiction counseling and 78 to detox programs. But they
don't know how many people actually got off drugs, or even if they really
tried.

Here's the big problem with shoot-up sites, and giving away heroin for that
matter. This approach doesn't help people get off drugs. It helps them keep
using.

SMACK DOWN: The NAOMI project, another brave federal experiment, is having a
heck of a time giving away free heroin in Vancouver's downtown eastside.
This pilot program prescribes heroin to long-term addicts who are willing to
submit to its extensive regulations. But it seems these folks aren't too
keen to become wards of the state. They prefer to take their chances with
the dealers on the street.

Word watch: Watch out for "safe injection site" to morph into "safe
consumption site." This is a euphemism for a crack-smoking room.
Politically-correct society can't tolerate a whiff of cigarette smoke, but
can somehow justify second-hand crack smoke. The push for these continues.