A Few More Words About Drug Addiction

This evening I've had a few private discussions on what I posted previously. Let's face it, drugs have been a devastating scourge on Vancouver. Talk with anyone who has visited here recently and you will hear two things:

1. What a beautiful city you live in!
2. Why has your drug addict and homeless situation become so horrific? :-(
   

The fight against drugs in this city and this country appears to be nearing the end of Round #2. The first round essentially ran from Canada's inception until about 20 years ago (I'm estimating). It was pretty black & white. Essentially if you were caught with possessing anything then you were convicted and served some jail time.

Some caring, arguably more enlightened people said, "That's pretty harsh. These drug addicts aren't criminals. We need to take a kinder, gentler approach."

Seemed reasonable at the time. Very "Canadian", if you will. So Round #2 started. I didn't live in Vancouver between 1987 - 1994 so I don't precisely know what happened during those years but when I did move back it was clear that things had gotten worse. Property crime was bad and getting worse every year. People made excuses. "Oh, it's a much bigger city after Expo '86. Living in a 'World Class City', one has to expect the bad with the good." And so on, and so on.

Things continued to get worse. The "bad part of town", centered at Main & Hastings, started to expand. Open drug use could be seen in that area every minute of every day. The Police became frustrated, because the people they arrested (80% of all property crime in Vancouver is directly related to drug addicts) were back on the street within hours. Things have spiraled completely out of control since then.

Let's all pause for a moment and take a big picture look at the situation . . .

Somehow we've let a well meaning, but completely harmful mindset pervade the fight against drug addiction. The result - and I believe it's a direct result - is that drug use has increased dramatically, as has crime, most especially property crime. No one is saying that we should put drug addicted lost souls in jail but it's long overdue that we stopped treating them with kid gloves and went well beyond trying to help them "only if they let us".

These people are sick with a cancer of their souls and need help even though most will refuse it right off the bat. Consider this analogy: Under today's laws, if a person is deemed to have a mental illness and poses a danger to themselves or others then they are forcibly removed from the street and placed in protective medical care until they are better. Makes sense, right? Then why isn't a similar approach used for drug addicts?

In the months ahead there will be renewed discussions on this issue. While I think that ex-mayor, Philip Owen, means well, he is completely misguided. Worse than him though are the various talking heads - so called "experts" whose financial well being often depends upon programs like Insite continuing forth. Be keenly aware of this when you hear them spurting off statistics that appear to have no correlation with common sense.

Heads Up: David Berner will be talking on this very issue on October 31st at the Chinatown Rotary Club. I will be posting further information about this and strongly encourage all who can attend to do so!