We grow up in a society that tells us drugs are bad, right? We are educated on the likes of cocaine, heroin, meth, marijuana more than we are educated in sexual matters. We know heroin is a highly addictive drug, why the fuck do we do it? Stupidity, that's why. I have managed to partake in a whole lot of drugs in my short lifetime but for some reason always steered clear of the "dirty" drugs (heroin, meth and crack) because I knew how addictive these bastards are. And I have a crazy fear of needles. I also have a zero tolerance policy for ignorance. There is no reason, in this age of information, for people to go out and shoot their veins full of smack. There are obvious exceptions and I understand that but I would venture an uneducated guess and say that 85-90 percent of these people did it to themselves. Why do we continue to support their habit? Why are we giving them safe injection sites, free needles and other drug paraphernalia (cookers, filters, water and tourniquets). Nobody supplied me with complimentary ZigZags when I was smoking weed or a safe place to trip out when I decided that LSD was a good way to spend every weekend.
Further, it seems like law enforcement is more concerned with pot smokers than junkies. If I want to sit on a park bench and smoke a joint, cuffs and the back of a cop car! However, if I were to sit on the same park bench and shoot myself up, the authorities would give me a pamphlet for InSite. Are you fucking with me? Is it easier to deal with a mellow pothead? Probably. They don't fight back and their response would be something like, "Alright, whatever man..." Now if you interrupt a cranked out junkie in the middle of hitting the mainline, watch out! You are in for a fight. These people are violent. I guess it is just easier to throw a pamphlet at them and be on your way.
So back to the initial story... Another fucking safe injection site. Feel free to criticise my "let 'em die" stance but if they are not willing to help themselves, why should I care? If we keep coddling them and saying "it's OK to be a junkie and tax our already overburdened healthcare system", do we really think the problem is going to get better? Um no. If I had my way, they would be locked into a specific area, gates, guards, etc and forced to live in their own filth with their own kind until they die or get serious about getting clean. This would eliminate, to some extent, the harm on the general public. Oh and sterilising them would be a good idea as well. We really don't need them breeding.
Alright callers... the lines are open... Let me have it!
Yes indeed. Stick them in cells and let them go through the withdrawal until they're clean, rather than providing them with ways to maintain their addictions. I'm with you on that.
ReplyDeleteWas it not the police selling drugs down there. Lock all the buggars up, come clean or go back to where you came from. Let your parents deal with you. See another 22 year old took a drug and died on the week end. Stupid,
ReplyDelete"...go back to where you came from."? "Let your parents deal with you."? You mustn't realize that a major reason these people on the DTES have substance abuse problems is because of their parents' and their parents' parents' inability to PARENT properly. Sending them back to an abusive environment sure isn't going to help the issue, that's for sure.
ReplyDeletePart of me agrees with your opinion, OQA, but I feel like it's the easy way out. Not that I have the solution to the problem, and not that I think addicts should be coddled into continuing their drug use.
What really changed my opinion on this subject was learning that getting high is a coping mechanism. I'm obviously generalizing, but not only have these people faced such unimaginable things in their lives (incest, rape, abuse, etc. from infancy/childhood onwards) -- which would cause depression or have psychological effects in the most stable people -- but they haven't learned appropriate coping mechanisms in their upbringing. If we're talking about the First Nations community, this problem goes back generations and generations to the time of residential schools. Getting high is their way to cope with the horrors they've seen and to numb their feelings.
If you're interested in learning more, check out Gabor Mate's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts." He's a Vancouver GP who started working on the DTES and wrote this book to talk about addiction and the DTES population. A very interesting read.
" I would venture an uneducated guess and say that 85-90 percent of these people did it to themselves" And I stand by that.
ReplyDeleteKaren, I completely agree with you re:coping. I know that some of these people have seen and experienced unimaginable things but surely there are other ways to deal with the issues. Education is the first defence.
Why do we continue to feed the ignorance? Because society is too lazy to truly do anything about the issue. We continue to throw money at the problem and hope it will go away. NEWS FLASH! It's not going away and it will not go away until we get off our sorry asses and clean up the problem. How do we do this? I don't know. I am simply a lowly blogger in a very large world.
I can definitely say that aiding the behaviour isn't going to solve the problem and neither is coddling. That leaves us with....?