ADDICTS ARE NOT GARBAGE

Re: City 'abetting' drug users, Cullen fears, Oct. 8.

In the four years I worked as an addiction counsellor in Ottawa, I
experienced first-hand the pain and suffering that many of my clients
went through after contracting hepatitis C from intravenous drug use.
Many of these men, having been cast aside by an unsympathetic system,
found themselves homeless and without proper medical care, fighting a
disease that has killed millions.

Sharing needles, spoons and other drug paraphernalia is the leading
way hepatitis C infection spreads in the intravenous-drug-using
population. Sharing a crack pipe, which is heated to such a degree
that the skin is literally burned from the lips, causing blood to be
left on the mouthpiece, is another factor in the cross-transmission of
the hepatitis C virus.

Too often, city councillors make ethical judgments based on pleasing
their constituents, at the expense of the fundamental needs of the
less fortunate.

What saddens me even more is the attitude of residents who grant more
importance to issues such as their yard waste not being picked up or
the inconvenience of a homeless encampment than on the sanctity and
fragility of a human life.

When will we accept that it is not a victory in the "war on drugs" we
should seek, but a way of minimizing the pain and devaluation of those
suffering from addiction? Perhaps we can all start by learning how to
become more understanding and loving of those who have a terrible and
often deadly disease, one for which, as of yet, there is no known cure?

Stephen Rowntree,

Ottawa