SAFE INJECTION SITES DENOUNCED AND SUPPORTED

This editorial offers a pastiche of unsubstantiated fact and
questionable opinion. It talks about how drug use and crime shot up in
Rotterdam in the early 1990s after a safe injection site was opened.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency made a similar claim in a paper
entitled Speaking Out Against Legalization, and the Dutch government
protested its accuracy. And injection sites still operate in the Dutch
city.

The anticipated Harper-Clement "Drug Strategy" will be the fourth in
less than 20 years. Doesn't the fact that our leaders feel compelled
to constantly revisit this issue suggest rather strongly that tweaking
the existing policy will not do the trick? The only answer is to
change the policy. But facts have never been able to stand up to
ideology, which for some is as mind-altering as the drugs you write
about.

Jerry Paradis, retired B.C. provincial court judge, North Vancouver.