Pubdate: Fri, 12 Apr 2002
Source: Cambridge Reporter, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 The Cambridge Reporter
Contact:  http://www.cambridge-reporter.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1470
Author: Kevin Allan
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n696/a01.html?11158

LOW SELF-ESTEEM CAUSES ADDICTION

As long as police such as Staff Sergeant Ray Massicotte continue to promote 
ignorance on drug abuse, nothing will change.

In the April 9 Reporter, he states "I've not met one heroin addict, one 
crack addict that didn't start with marijuana." That may be true but the 
only connection is the prohibition of the drugs themselves. Where you can 
buy marijuana, you can buy cocaine or heroin as well. What he promotes puts 
the drugs in the schools.

How does Staff Sergeant Massicotte explain alcohol addicts and gasoline 
sniffers? How does he explain that 10 per cent of police who are regular 
users of the drug alcohol (the drug with the highest intoxication) are 
alcohol addicts ?

He can't because he doesn't know what he is talking about. The truth is 
addicts let themselves get addicted although most of them don't know this 
themselves. That is the real tragedy. They use these substances because 
they hurt. Addiction to any and all substances is only a symptom.

The drugs (including the recreational drug alcohol) are not the problem. 
The problem is a society that is too willing to buy the prohibitionists' 
party line that it's the drug. This is the true cop-out.

The truth is almost with-out exception, all addictions are a symptom of low 
to zero (internal) self-esteem. Who else would live in a gutter but a 
person with no self-worth? It's the same reason alcohol addicts abuse their 
drug and the Inuit sniff gasoline. It's also the same reason that only 10 
to 15 per cent of regular users of any substance get addicted (like the 10 
per cent of regular police alcohol users who are alcohol addicts).

Addicts are programmed as children.

Kevin Allan

Vancouver
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