JUNKIE'S BLUES

There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes

Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose...

Folk singer John Prine's bleak lyric about a Vietnam veteran hooked on
heroin was written 30 years ago, but sadly, it still resonates today,
judging from the debate about the plight of hardcore drug addicts.

Today we can see documentary footage of an injection cocaine user trying to
crawl across four dark, wet traffic lanes on Hastings Street. Cocaine users
try to shoot up about every half hour and are subject to bouts of "cocaine
psychosis," making nodded-out heroin junkies seem almost calm and low-risk
by comparison.

Following our May 18 report in which visiting police experts questioned the
promotion of "safe injection sites" in Vancouver, a network of writers from
Canada and the U.S. leapt angrily to the defence of the "harm reduction"
approach to public policy. Today two local residents add their own
arguments against making hard drugs easier.

The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS also responded (see page 9),
pointing out that the vast majority of public spending goes to law
enforcement, not treatment. Incredibly, the Centre argues that injection
drug use is mainly a result of childhood violence and sexual abuse, and a
lack of sufficient government programs to treat it. So the nanny state
should take over, replacing those big nasty cops with tax-funded legal drug
dealers!

The fact that many junkies refuse treatment, just as they refuse to bring
in dirty needles when picking up clean ones, isn't often discussed by the
"harm reduction" promoters. The fact that effective detox and treatment
spaces are scarce isn't often discussed by politicians.

The fact that politicians are rewarded for arresting and punishing junkies,
and vilified for helping them, isn't often discussed by voters. It should be.