HARD 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 a
safe-injection site in the City of 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 current 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.