VANCOUVER LEADS WAY IN DRUG WAR

A picture out of Vancouver's East Hastings Street strip tells the terrible
tale of drug addiction. An emaciated woman uses a pocket mirror to help her
aim a needle of heroin into a vein in her neck.

It was one of those photographs that becomes etched in the memory bank. A
person looking at the picture might wonder why someone didn't stop her.

Why indeed? Why hasn't society stopped drug addiction? Why does it appear
that instead of stopping them, people like the mayor of Vancouver seem to
be aiding them in their destructive lifestyle. In fact, that is what he is
trying to do. Mayor Larry Campbell, a former coroner who knows all about
drug deaths, wants to save some lives. His city council has approved a
supervised injection site, which opens today, in the Downtown Eastside. The
first of its kind in North America, the clinic will allow addicts to use
drugs under medical supervision and without fear of arrest.

The goal is to alleviate the drug-related diseases spreading through the
ghettos in Vancouver. It's the same objective organizations such as the
AIDS Society in Kamloops has when it hands out condoms and clean needles to
addicts. Many people here and in Vancouver argue this kind of assistance
condones the use of drugs and only worsens the conditions of the addicts.
They prefer a hardline approach of forced withdrawal. It won't work.

We can't stop people from using drugs, but we can help prevent them from
dying as a result of a disease they can't control. Fortunately, we don't
live in a society where we toss people on the scrap heap because the
healthy among us decide they are not worth saving. Every living person
contributes something in some way to a society, even if it a lesson as to
how not to live.

Drug addiction is not a crime and should not be treated as such. It's a
disease and people don't help control it with a lack of understanding about
its cause and its cure. People who advocate punishment and alienation for
users are looking for a black and white solution that doesn't exist. It's
no good pushing the problem out of sight by locking up drug addicts. These
sick people deserve compassion, not contempt. Behind every single addict
there exists a social or personality problem that has led to the addiction.
Drug addiction isn't about making choices. There's not a person who would
choose to live the life of the woman in the photograph.

In her words, "I'd love to get off of it, but I just can't get up and do
that. I have no drive. I don't know what to do. I'm lost."

How terribly sad. She lives a horrible existence every day, but yet she
still has hope that she can beat drugs. That's what Mayor Campbell is
giving addicts when he advocates treating drug addiction as a health
problem instead of a criminal matter.

He's being practical and he's being compassionate as he tells addicts his
government considers them human beings who deserve to be cared for in a
dignified setting rather than dismissed to die alone on a dirty street.

Those of us who don't suffer from a life-threatening addiction would be
wise to realize that we are lucky, not better.