Pubdate: Sat, 09 Sep 2006 Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC) Copyright: 2006, BC Newspaper Group Contact: http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/948 Author: Thomas Toye DON'T ENCOURAGE JUNKIES IN TOWN To the Editor, Re: Fall's arrival magnifies poverty, B.C. Views, Sept. 7. I have just returned from a two-week holiday visiting my family, most of whom emigrated to B.C. around 50 years ago. I now have two aunts, three cousins and their extended families living in Maple Ridge and I always receive a warm welcome. I congratulate you on your article, which I read on the Internet. Here in Scotland we have the same problems with the so-called "homeless drug addicts" and we also have the same bleeding heart politicians and social workers with their schemes, projects and solutions to the problems of crime, illegal squatting on private property and vandalism caused by these people. Throwing public money at them, giving them sympathy, free needles and places to inject, etc. it's all futile. I know - I'm a civil servant in the Department of Work and Pensions, and the word "work" is simply not in their vocabulary. We have them here too: people who would rather commit suicide than do one day's honest hard work in their natural lives. And why should they when our government and its agencies give them welfare, so-called community care grants and everything they need to lead a comfortable life and all at the taxpayers' expense? We live in crazy times, and with increasingly crazy liberal governments not only tolerating these parasites in our midst, but encouraging them. Things will never change. Your article was accurate, not only describing the junkie issue in Canada, but throughout the Western world. Thomas Toye, Paisley, Scotland - --- MAP posted-by: Derek