ADDICTION DRAGON DIFFICULT TO SLAY

It's commendable that both local and provincial politicians are taking
an alternate view on the omnipresent challenge of addiction in our
society.

Last week, local and provincial politicians alike returned to the
forefront as they promoted addictions response and treatment processes.

Locally, a report released last week supported some of the fundamental
principles behind a drive to install safe-injection sites in Victoria
- -- a project keenly supported by Victoria mayor Alan Lowe.
Provincially, Mainland MLA Lorne Mayencourt has brainstormed his idea
for an addiction rehabilitation facility at the old CFB Baldy Hughes
site near Prince George.

Both suggestions carry merit, and both do more to address the
challenges of addiction than the current flawed policy of simply
arresting drug-users and hoping the penal system can somehow
miraculously change an addict's life.

It is well known that drug use and drug addiction is intimately linked
with the criminal activity of many repeat offenders: officers
frequently state that people "well-known to the police" (a common term
for a person cycling through our catch-and-release judicial system)
are at the root of some 60 per cent or more of Criminal Code cases in
the Capital Region.

Those crimes are usually property offences, such as break and enters,
or addicts smashing into cars to steal small items for later sale.
While the crimes themselves are not directly drug-related, they are
nonetheless intimately linked to the cycle of addiction.

Calls for punitive response to these crimes overlooks a critical
problem. Jail does nothing to curb an addict's appetite for drugs,
hence incarcerating a drug-addicted habitual offender for the property
crimes they commit to feed an addiction is merely flailing at the
symptoms of a larger problem.

What is needed to stem drug-related crimes is a means to move habitual
offenders with drug-use problems into a treatment system that will
address the addiction at the core of the criminal behaviour.

However, with deference to both Lowe and Mayencourt, that challenge is
far greater than either level of government can solve. Even the
federal government is somewhat powerless to render change, as forcing
an addict into treatment is a violation of that person's
constitutional rights: one of the weaknesses in Canadian law that will
prove difficult, if not impossible to solve.

Thus, moves to treatment centres and front-line harm-reduction through
safe-injection sites carry considerable merit: such moves may, for the
moment, be the best actions currently available under our laws.

Those that decry safe-injection sites often cite the seemingly
ideological flaw in pumping tax dollars to effectively allow an
illegal act. That is a shortsighted view that fails to take into
account the larger cycle of addiction. We trust that those opposed to
such moves -- and this may include supporters of the current federal
government -- pause for a moment and offer praise to those providing
real solutions that may help create a better society for us all.