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ELECTION AFTERMATH - MORE DRUG INJECTION SITES
One thing is certain - after the 2004 federal
election - pressure will intensify to increase the number
of drug injection sites in Canada.
This issue is now lying dormant, pending the
election, as the Liberal government does not want to beat
back, with the usual denials, another controversial issue.
Yet, behind the scenes, the federal Department of Health is
methodically working on plans to give approval to drug injection
sites across the country, similar to the one operating at
present in Vancouver.
The argument in support of drug injection
sites is always the same. It gets addicts off the streets
where they can inject drugs in a safe environment with clean
needles.
The truth about drug injection sites is startling
and sordid in the extreme.
In the first place, the initiative for injecting
rooms has the ultimate objective of legalizing all mind-altering
drugs by normalizing their use. This is the real reason behind
legalized injecting rooms.
We already have legalized needle distribution
centres in Vancouver and Montreal, which have not solved the
problem of addicts, but have instead increased new infections
of Hepatitis C. This is because addicts do not exchange their
used needles for clean ones - they just collect their new
needles and use them and their used needles again and again
- elsewhere.
Similarly, injection sites don't mean that
they are the only places addicts will get their injections
- they'll just get further injections - elsewhere.
Injection sites increase heroin use and, therefore,
increase the market for it. Since police are not permitted
around drug injection sites, these sites become a haven for
drug pushers who operate there for easy access to their customers.
The drugs sold are obtained from international criminal drug
cartels, so criminals are the major beneficiaries of the drug
injection sites.
The world's largest producer of heroin, by
the way, is terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization.
The use of illicit drug traders was supported by a religious
edict (fatwa) which claimed that "… if we cannot
kill them [western democracies] by guns, we will with drugs",
according to U.S. government officials.
As addicts need money for more heroin injections,
they commit crimes in the community in order to buy the drugs
from the pushers. This was the experience in Holland after
it opened drug injection sites. It experienced, among other
offences, a 40% increase in shootings; and a 62% increase
in robberies and car thefts. Even if the government offers
"free" heroin to addicts at the injection sites,
instead of the addicts' B.Y.O. heroin (bring your own heroin),
the heroin has to come from drugs that the government has
seized from criminals - brought into the country illegally
by international drug crime syndicates. Thus, the criminal
drug cartels continue to benefit with ever more heroin being
brought into the country. This undermines anti-drug work both
by our own police forces as well as by international law enforcement
agencies.
The drug problem can only be tackled when
addicted persons follow the proper course of medical treatment,
accompanied by counselling. Sweden, the U.S., Singapore and
other countries, which have much lower drug use, have used
their legal system to direct addicts into detoxification and
rehabilitation. That is, laws in those countries compel addicts
to undergo treatments under pain of jail. This has enormous
advantages, such as:
- Fewer drug overdose deaths;
- Fewer addicts as treatment gets addicts drug free;
- Less demand for drug pushers;
- Less use of health services for overdose victims;
- Less crime because of fewer addicts;
- Former addicts, now drug free, contributing to society;
- Fewer police resources used for drug related crime;
- Less tax money used for drug maintenance programs;
- Former addicts living longer with improved health;
- Less tax money used for prisons as there is less
drug crime;
- Fewer blood infections, e.g. Hepatitis C.
The fact is, providing detoxification and
rehabilitation to illicit drug users to get them off drugs
is the only proven way of preventing deaths and permanent,
debilitating brain damage from heroin use.
In Sweden, drug usage rates are five times
lower than, for example, in Switzerland, which has established
drug injection sites. This is because Sweden uses the courts
to divert drug users into detoxification and rehabilitation.
Sweden's rehabilitation diversion program has an 80% to 90%
success rate in getting users drug free.
So, in which direction will Canada go? It
depends upon whom we elect as our new government. A Liberal
government will certainly mean a proliferation of drug injection
sites in Canada.
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