Pubdate: Sat, 21 Dec 2002
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002, Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.fyiottawa.com/ottsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: D. Connors
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor, headline by newshawk

HERE'S A REALITY CHECK

RE: Pot and safe injection sites. It must be so easy for people to joke 
about or criticize government initiatives on these issues. It must be so 
easy to discount the value of lives of drug addicts (who are often homeless 
and at higher risk of having HIV/AIDS or hep-C) by saying: "Throw the bums 
in jail!" ... they're are eyesore after all! We feel sorry for alcoholics, 
but have no sympathy for drug addicts. The only difference: One substance 
is legal ... and we all know that not everything legal is necessarily moral 
or ethical. We would all prefer this reality did not exist, but it does, so 
let's deal with it.

HERE'S A REALITY CHECK: DECADES AGO, POT WAS DECRIMINALIZED IN THE 
Netherlands and usage rates are lower today than in 1982. The cost of 
supplying anti-HIV medication for one person can be over $24,000 a year. An 
addict doesn't much care where their dirty needle is left, the legality of 
their actions, or their health ... they worry about getting their next fix.

Think you're angry because $1 billion was mismanaged on the gun registry? 
How much do you think it would cost to track down, arrest, prosecute and 
keep in jail every single Canadian who smokes pot?

The same people who go the morality route on drugs are the same ones who 
would be up in arms upon learning of tax hikes to pay for increased law and 
order, or asking why harm-reduction strategies weren't in place when their 
darling six-year-old catches HIV from a needle found in the school yard. 
Eternally dissatisfied hypocrites!

D. Connors

Ottawa

(Maybe, but that doesn't make their argument wrong or right)
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens