DRUGS RULE THE ADDICT'S EVERY THOUGHT

To the editor:

I was a police officer for 27 years, during which I spent time on the
Vancouver Drug Squad and on the beat in the downtown eastside. I
arrested drug users for various crimes which had been committed to
feed very expensive habits.

I watched well meaning citizens groups offer help to these individuals
to "kick the habit" voluntarily, which, for the most part was useless.

You see, most drug users were not addicts because the wanted to be but
because the drug controlled their every waking thought. They do not
care who they victimize to get the funds required to buy their drug of
choice, only that they get enough to make a purchase and fulfill the
need.

We as a society must pity these people as they are lost souls who need
help badly.

The only way to properly deal with an addict is to take over their
life just as the drug they are using has. We must put them into a
treatment facility against the will of the drug and get them off it.
We are deluding ourselves if we think that we can ask them to quit
voluntarily as they are not speaking for themselves.

There are those who will tell you that it is too expensive to build
facilities to place addicts in to get them off drugs.

I say it costs way more to leave them on the street to prey on anyone
or anything in order to maintain a drug addiction.

The civil rights advocates will argue that you are taking away their
freedoms when, in fact, the drug already has.

We can no longer allow this "plague" to continue unchecked or it will
get far worse before it gets better.

The alternative to forced treatment is to make the general populace
career victims and the drug addict sentenced to a life of slavery to
their sickness.

ED LUFT

Westbank