MANY FRIENDS, FAMILY TRYING TO HELP ADDICTED RELATIVES

The Editor,

Re: "'If they are dead, they don't require help any more,'" The Now
letters, Feb. 16.

I take huge offence to the view of V. Jaremko of Delta on the scores of
women who have disappeared from the Downtown Eastside, and their friends
and families.

The comment "Where were these people when these women were alive and needed
help?" is obviously written by someone who lives in a glass house. Having
spent Monday (Feb. 11) in the Downtown Eastside with friends from
California looking for my brother, I can tell you firsthand that there are
friends and family who try to help those who end up there.

"If they are dead, they don't require help anymore." Based on this view,
why solve any murder? The victim is already dead, he or she doesn't much
care now if the murderer gets caught or not, what difference will it make
if you're already dead? The acronym RIP comes to mind.

"Society should pick people like this up off the street and send them to
detox stations and later to rehab..." is a great idea, but infringes on
one's human rights. Short of kidnapping, you can't force an adult into
rehab or detox. Even if they go to rehab, who's to say they will stay? It
is rehab after all and not jail, and they can leave if they choose.

To be "...helped emotionally and financially" is another good idea,
however, drug addicts have a tendency to drain you emotionally and
financially. Until the addict has made a concentrated effort to go clean,
family and friends can no longer afford - emotionally and financially - to
support the addict.

And finally, "If human rights are keeping people free to walk the streets
then human rights should also protect them from themselves..." is a
contradiction in itself. Is the implication V. Jaremko of Delta has more
human rights than Jane Doe of the Downtown Eastside? Who decides who has
what right?

Now don't get me wrong. I wish more than anyone that you could force
someone into rehab, but I also know that you can't. You have no idea of the
frustration and feeling of helplessness in trying to get someone off the
street and into detox, before they kill themselves or get killed, as
seemingly happened to the 50-plus women from the Downtown Eastside. You
also have no idea of the far-reaching damage drug addiction has. In my
family alone, one person is addicted, but many people's lives have been
permanently changed for the worse because of it.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of these 50-plus women who are
now possibly faced with an unimaginable end to a terribly painful story. I
once lived in a glass house, but I no longer throw stones as one of those
stones broke our house, and it can break your house, too.

J. MacLean

Surrey