Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jun 2008 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2008 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Doug Panton Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08.n559.a02.html INSITE DEALS WITH DRUG PROBLEM IN SPECIFIC WAYS Re: Deal with addicts' problems rather than funding safe sites, June 4. No one would argue about the need for dealing with "social decay." The problem is that these are the areas in which provincial and federal governments have been spending money for years. It's only the existence of Insite, the supervised injection site, that prompted federal authorities to promise a few new treatment beds in the Vancouver area. The required programs cost a lot of money to run, and even then will be far short of eliminating the problems. Some of them haven't even been designed yet. How do you deal with broken homes (or bad parents) after the damage is done? There's no one who can replace a lost childhood. Mental illness can be treated in many cases, but in others it requires forcible intervention which society is loathe to impose. Even illiteracy, possibly the easiest problem to deal with, requires both money and an interest from the needy to actively participate. England isn't reclassifying marijuana, the prime minister is, overriding the experts, committees and studies that see it as a backwards and unjustified step. Scotland thought that giving people methadone would get them off drugs. No wonder they're examining the program for there's no incentive to quit. Forcing addicts to quit is hardly a new idea, it's just New Zealand's turn to look at it and then look at something else. It's all very nice for Health Minister Tony Clement to take a stand, but he needs a sturdy policy (and budget) to stand on or he will sink back into the same old bureaucratic mess we know so well. Doug Panton, Port Coquitlam, B.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin