ADDICTS ARTICLE ELICITS CRITICISM AND PRAISE (4 of 4)

It is encouraging to read an article like Alicia Priest's "Middle Class
Addicts" and feel like we may be starting to get a more straightforward and
honest dialogue in the media about the significance of drugs and their
place in our culture.

Market value is so absurdly inflated that it causes far greater suffering
than simply that of the drugs to the users themselves, and there is a blind
refusal to even entertain the notion of valid medical indications for drugs
like cocaine or heroin. Most importantly, addict demonization plays out
some of the ugliest tendencies in human nature when we adversely prejudge a
distinct segment of the population and wind up burning some beautiful
people at the stake.

I was frustrated to learn that despite all the progressive work the City of
Vancouver is undertaking to ameliorate the untenable conditions for addicts
in the Downtown Eastside, the detox-bed crisis that began years ago with
the NPA closure of Pender Detox has been overlooked and we actually
continue to lose beds. As it stands, addicts in poverty are often
prohibited from initiating steps away from addiction by the simple lack of
stability required to telephone regularly until a bed becomes available.
Detox on demand is fundamental to the mandate of need because moments of
clarity are transient, both on the street and in the middle class.

Shawn Miller