'SAFE INJECTION' A DECEIT

The civic election in Vancouver City appears to have been shanghaied
by the woes of the Downtown Eastside. All three mayoralty candidates
are tripping over each other to outdo the promises of bringing
so-called "safe injection" and "harm reduction" services to the
drug-addled area.

Aside from the fact that there are other issues in the metro area, I
feel that politicians have been dumping all their social problems into
this unfortunate area and turning it into a ghetto. I wouldn't vote
for any of the three parties and I wish a pox on all the political
parties for this heartless action.

What I find especially disturbing is that over the past decade, the
government has been closing down mental institutions to "integrate"
the patients into normal society. This I could support, but sadly, the
patients have been just given a ride to the Downtown Eastside and a
voucher for a seedy hotel room. Here, they are victimized by drug
dealers, and reportedy, about 30 per cent of the addicts wandering the
streets are former mental patients. That's appalling.

We should be helping these people lift themselves up but instead we've
abandoned them. And now the "four pillars" drug policy promoted by
departing Mayor Phillip Owen would give these people a "safe place" to
inject deadly drugs.

What's next? A safe place to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco? Are we
nuts?

As a teenager back in the '60s, I can recall safely taking a bus to
Vancouver's Hastings area and checking out the deals at Woodward's and
Army & Navy, and seeing the movies at the cinemas. The streets were
bustling with a cross-section of society back then.

It's also unjust that the government does not provide insulin, let
alone free needles to diabetics, even though a diabetic will die
without this necessary medication. Yet we are going to shell out
millions to help subsidize narcotics dealers, who will be plying their
wares in the waiting lines for these proposed services?

The Downtown Eastside is already very bad, but this will turn it into
a true hellhole because it will attract junkies from across the
continent. I've seen some of the worst ghettoes in the third world,
and this is not something we should aspire to. As human beings we
cannot allow this to happen to Vancouver.