MENTALLY ILL NEED RESCUE

To the editor:

Two comments about Vancouver's drug problem in the Downtown Eastside by
different people have led me to write this letter.

The first comment was made by a woman who was opposed to spending
taxpayers' money on the drug problem, stating that drug addicts had made a
choice to try the drug in the first place, and secondly, they made a choice
to "stay" drug addicts.

The second comment was made by a psychiatrist, who told me he took his
students to the Downtown Eastside to show them firsthand the area in which
some low-income mental patients lived in.

The low rents in the Downtown Eastside act as magnets for the mentally ill,
who are not working, or if working, have a low income. With their judgment
impaired by mental illness, they are easy prey for recruiters in the sex
and drug trade.

May I suggest a fifth pillar to the city's drug strategy, that of
prevention, especially for the mentally ill, by preventing the mentally ill
living in the Downtown Eastside in the first place.

Helping to fund such organizations as Coast Foundation, the Kettle
Friendship Society and Mental Patients Association, who provide subsidized
housing for the mentally ill, could prevent the mentally ill from becoming
addicts in the first place.

An old clich,, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," might be
applicable in this case.

Mary Phyllis O'Toole

Vancouver