Pubdate: Thu, 28 Jul 2016
Source: Now, The (Surrey, CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thenownewspaper.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1462

SAFE SITE FOR DRUGS IS LAST THING SURREY NEEDS

Surrey's Mayor Linda Hepner has taken a lot of heat on social media 
and in the press for her reluctance to see a so-called "safe drug 
injection site" set up in her city, but we think she's the voice of 
reason on this matter.

Health officials recently called for such a facility to be located in 
Surrey after numerous overdoses in Whalley occurred as a result of 
drug addicts unknowingly injecting fentanyl, along with heroin, into 
their veins.

Setting up a "safe consumption site," as it's euphemistically called, 
is ironically establishing a permanent Band-Aid solution that will 
not cure drug addiction but rather help users stay on their 
destructive path. That volunteers collected 592,073 dirty needles 
from Surrey's streets last year bears testimony to that.

Let's face it, nobody wants to be a junkie, and putting that first 
needle into your arm is, to say the least, one of the worst decisions 
a person can make.

We don't hand out guns, pills or rope to people contemplating 
suicide, and yet we hand out needles and provide "safe consumption 
sites" to people who are tragically killing themselves on the slow.

We are told that drug addiction is a disease. If that's so, it should 
be treated as such - medically.

Do public health officials set up smoking areas for cancer patients? 
Of course not. Why, then, are injection sites being set up for drug 
addicts when these people need real treatment, and should be treated 
as patients, to help rid them of this terrible disease they are afflicted with?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom