From today's National Post comes a letter from an addict's relative, saying enough with the pity parties and poverty pimps.

As a family member of one of Victoria's junkie population, I do not agree that "most wish their main remedy did not have to be a dose of crack or heroin injected in an alleyway." As many a family member of a junkie will tell you, until the day they actually reject a dose in favour of detox, addicts wish for little besides more and more doses of crack or heroin, and the fewest possible distractions from getting on with them. The feelings, needs and rights of other people are distractions that junkies very readily dispense with.

Junkies are pretty ruthless about acquiring the means to get more drugs, and one of the means they need is territory. They need a place to hang out with their cronies, a place to connect with dealers and a place to shoot up. They don't care if it's an alley, as long as no one hassles them. As both Vancouver and Victoria have shown, any territory not aggressively defended by civilized society will be lost to the drug scene.

It is very convenient, but not at all believable, to assert that mental illness is behind the majority of drug use, panhandling and street life. If drug use were not so generously supported by society, via the generous supply of free food and shelter that allows junkies to concentrate better on their drug-seeking rather than on self-care, I think a lot of purportedly mentally ill people would recover their sanity quite quickly (leaving services available for the truly mentally ill).

It is also convenient, but, again, not believable, to assert that drug users are victims of urban society. If lack of services caused drug addiction, then there would be a lot more addicts. To see addicts as hapless victims forces the conclusion that they are powerless over their actions, in which case they should not be autonomous. If we consider them as autonomous as other citizens, free to use the streets, then they need to be accountable for how they use them.

Drug use isn't easy to beat by any means. But making excuses for drug users and supporting their drug use doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it makes it nearly impossible.

Labels: Drugs, Personal Responsibility