A MENTALITY OF ENTITLEMENT

Addicts Need Compassion And Medical Care -- But They Shouldn't Be
Allowed To Rule Our Streets

For the past two years since Vancouver's supervised-injection site
opened, addicts have continued to shoot up in alleys, doorways and
even in the middle of the block in broad daylight. Finally, Vancouver
police have begun to arrest the most blatant drug-users around the
facility known as Insite.

Residents and business operators have been affronted and tourists
amazed by the number of addicts openly injecting themselves on
Downtown Eastside streets. Many have done so within a few steps of
Insite: The Vancouver Health Authority recovers about 18,000
discarded needles a month within a four-block radius of the place.

It's evident that the lack of police enforcement has contributed to
the mentality of entitlement that many of these addicts exhibit. The
authorities recognize, as they should, that drug addiction is a
health problem rather than a criminal one, but many addicts have
abused their tolerance.

They deal in drugs while standing next to police officers, they snarl
at people who interrupt them when they've located a vein to inject,
they impede pedestrians and cause people to avoid a part of their
city. A lot of them can't be bothered to take a few extra steps to
get to the supervised-injection site; a lot of them can't be bothered
to line up for a few minutes to use it.

The site has proved its worth, though. There have been more than 100
overdoses there, but none of them has resulted in death since medical
help is available. In fact, the health authority says that the high
number of overdoses shows the clinic has saved lives.

But it can handle only 600 injections a day, and the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users says there are 15,000 a day among the city's
drug users. It's evident that more supervised-injection sites are
needed, as well as more access to treatment for those who want to
kick the habit.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe is laying the groundwork for a supervised
injection site here, and the Vancouver experience shows why his
cautious approach is appropriate. Our addict population is nothing
like Vancouver's and Victoria voters wouldn't, as Vancouver voters
have just done, elect a mayor who has admitted giving addicts money
for drugs and allowing one of them to smoke crack in his van.

Finding a neighbourhood willing to put up with our homeless has been
difficult enough; finding one that would accept a shooting gallery
will be far more difficult -- especially after we've seen the extent
of open drug use around Insite.

A supervised injection site won't reduce the number of addicts in our
town, as the Vancouver experience shows, though it can keep the
number of fatal overdoses down. And harm reduction, which such sites
provide, is only one of the four pillars that Vancouver has embraced
and Lowe supports -- the others being treatment, prevention and enforcement.

While addiction is a chronic health condition and should be treated
with compassion and medical care, that does not mean that the
patients should run the hospital and assume that it extends to the
streets and boulevards of our communities.