"The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-Mark Twain
Had a very short, but interesting talk with one of my friends at dinner last night. To set the stage...she is Christian...has a strong personality (in some things, but not in others...a paradox somedays, methinks)...and has a strict sense of morals. I am not Christian (though have had many try to convert me)...I too have a strong personality (some days it is a strength and on other days, people can't stand me)...and I too have a strong sense of morals (though one which is not grounded in religion). So, for this brief moment, I will open the door to my social consciousness...it is rather pathetic...try not to talk too much most days because I end up putting my foot in my mouth...;-)
Like I said, it was a very short discussion...can't remember what prompted this...but I think I got her hackles raised a bit...am good at that:P So, will outline my side...and hopefully it will allow both sides to entertain the thoughts in a cooler manner:) Our discussion was on the legalization of drugs...a rather contentious issue, especially with the situation in the downtown Eastside and other instances throughout the Western world. I have to preface what I will write next with some preliminary comments...I do NOT have the answers...I have NOT thought of ALL the consequences of what I believe in (I lack the experience to do this, even if I had the time)...but I do believe strongly in what I will write next. And to further qualify my following statements, I have considered other alternatives, but in considering the "pros" and "cons" of each, I believe this offers the most upside, despite the disadvantages inherent to it. Without further ado...
Vancouver is in a very interesting position...the downtown Eastside, to my knowledge, has a high prevalence of drug abuse, prostitution...the incidence of HIV infection is the highest in Canada, if not North America...St. Paul's Hospital treats an enormous cohort of AIDS-infected individuals. The social and economic impact of this area is incalculable...merchants in nearby Chinatown protest the construction of safe injection houses...police turn a blind eye to the possession of small amounts of marijuana...people are afraid of walking in a part of town which was once booming (those who have lived here for a long time will know this - my great grandfather used to visit the Woodward's department store every $1.49 day...my 1 month birthday ("muen yuet") celebration was at a restaurant across the street...it was the best restaurant in Vancouver at the time)...now it is a decrepit area...developers are trying to maximize the use of the prime real estate there...and ultimately hope to push those forgotten individuals to the fringes...and all these things frustrate me...it doesn't make any sense to me.
Drug use...in some regards...it is a choice...but in others, it is not. From the perspective on my side of the fence...ie...relatively well educated, have led a sheltered life (compared to those I write about now), had the opportunities to do most of what I like...most people I know belong here. And in some ways, at risk of offending many, it can result in the establishment of a moral high ground...and it is not a good thing...especially as society searches for answers to tough questions and solutions to even more worrisome situations. With the residents of the Eastside, we are not dealing with objects...they are people, like us...with their flaws, their failures, their dreams...and again like us, the same blood courses through their veins.
There is no doubt, most, if not all, of these individuals are drug users...many are infected with HIV and other viruses (from dirty needles, unprotected sex, etc)...there are some who are mentally handicapped...those who are rational, but have fallen on hard times...there are the young, the old...they are often the ones that society has left behind. I once read somewhere, that the way to judge a society...it is to look at how it treats it's poor (I can no longer remember where I read this...but am not smart enough to come up with this myself:P)...in some parts of the States, the city gets a Greyhound bus and goes around town to collect all the homeless people and ship them off to a different city...in Vancouver, we just push them all to the downtown Eastside or to parts of Surrey...
In any society, there are certain things that no matter what the powers do...it is impossible to stamp out...prostitution (coined the world's oldest profession) and drug abuse are two that come to mind. The policy of most societies in the developed and developing world is to police the drug trade...try to stifle it...to use force to strangle the life out of something that cannot be killed...in my opinion, it is a futile process. In Latin America...drug lords rule...they have the money, the power AND the guns. In the States, it is estimated that with all the billions (maybe hundreds of billions) of dollars put into policing the drug trade...only 1% of the illegal drugs entering the country are stopped...I am not an economist, but to me, that is a terrible, terrible investment...it is a waste of resources...a waste of human life lost in policing this...lives lost in the gang turf wars...lives of drug users lost when they overdose on crack cocaine because it is too pure. And could these resources be put to better use...I think so...the States have a terrible literacy track record...hospitals refuse those dying, simply because they don't have health insurance...I could go on...
But what the US does is not critical here...in Canada...the "war on drugs" is less dramatic...but there are always examples... I do not know the figures...how much the Canadian government spends on policing the drug trade...hundreds of millions of dollars?...more? less? no idea, to be honest... Drug abuse, in my mind, is a problem...won't try to romanticize it the least bit...but it has to be addressed...the system is simply not working...dirty needles are killing people...one way or the other...the drug quality is killing people (can you think of any news stories where a teenager tried ecstasy (or more commonly known as "E") for the first time at a rave...and paid for it with their life...simply because the drug purity/quality was compromised?)..."druggies" killing police officers...police officers killing druggies...rival drug dealers "knocking" each other off...need I go on? It is a social problem...and a wide reaching one, at that...at the end of the day though, this is just my opinion.
I support legalization. Plain and simple. Give people safe injection houses...give them clean needles...take the power away from the drug dealer (this is simple economics..."supply and demand"...make something illegal...if there is a profit to be made, then someone will jump in and fill that demand)...treat the addicts as patients, not criminals. Pushing this problem and these people to the fringes...it is not a solution, it never will be...so why not treat them as fellow members in our society?...why not treat them as people? After all, they are... All the resources that are currently being used to fight the drug trade...put it into something more productive...fighting a battle that cannot be won on it's current front...it is silly...win it using a different strategy. Having the government provide "safe" drugs...I don't believe more people will become drug users...this is counter-intuitive. I, for one, will never try these drugs...even if they were free...and I don't think I am an exception.
Make it safe for these people...they won't go away if we ignore them...put some of the money from policing into treating them...who knows?...maybe, once we welcome them back into the fold as members of OUR society, they will one day help make our society better... Even if these individuals don't make our society better (a thought I find hard to believe), our society will be better...you can count on it!
A contentious issue, no doubt...but one worth thinking about...
-Mark Twain
Had a very short, but interesting talk with one of my friends at dinner last night. To set the stage...she is Christian...has a strong personality (in some things, but not in others...a paradox somedays, methinks)...and has a strict sense of morals. I am not Christian (though have had many try to convert me)...I too have a strong personality (some days it is a strength and on other days, people can't stand me)...and I too have a strong sense of morals (though one which is not grounded in religion). So, for this brief moment, I will open the door to my social consciousness...it is rather pathetic...try not to talk too much most days because I end up putting my foot in my mouth...;-)
Like I said, it was a very short discussion...can't remember what prompted this...but I think I got her hackles raised a bit...am good at that:P So, will outline my side...and hopefully it will allow both sides to entertain the thoughts in a cooler manner:) Our discussion was on the legalization of drugs...a rather contentious issue, especially with the situation in the downtown Eastside and other instances throughout the Western world. I have to preface what I will write next with some preliminary comments...I do NOT have the answers...I have NOT thought of ALL the consequences of what I believe in (I lack the experience to do this, even if I had the time)...but I do believe strongly in what I will write next. And to further qualify my following statements, I have considered other alternatives, but in considering the "pros" and "cons" of each, I believe this offers the most upside, despite the disadvantages inherent to it. Without further ado...
Vancouver is in a very interesting position...the downtown Eastside, to my knowledge, has a high prevalence of drug abuse, prostitution...the incidence of HIV infection is the highest in Canada, if not North America...St. Paul's Hospital treats an enormous cohort of AIDS-infected individuals. The social and economic impact of this area is incalculable...merchants in nearby Chinatown protest the construction of safe injection houses...police turn a blind eye to the possession of small amounts of marijuana...people are afraid of walking in a part of town which was once booming (those who have lived here for a long time will know this - my great grandfather used to visit the Woodward's department store every $1.49 day...my 1 month birthday ("muen yuet") celebration was at a restaurant across the street...it was the best restaurant in Vancouver at the time)...now it is a decrepit area...developers are trying to maximize the use of the prime real estate there...and ultimately hope to push those forgotten individuals to the fringes...and all these things frustrate me...it doesn't make any sense to me.
Drug use...in some regards...it is a choice...but in others, it is not. From the perspective on my side of the fence...ie...relatively well educated, have led a sheltered life (compared to those I write about now), had the opportunities to do most of what I like...most people I know belong here. And in some ways, at risk of offending many, it can result in the establishment of a moral high ground...and it is not a good thing...especially as society searches for answers to tough questions and solutions to even more worrisome situations. With the residents of the Eastside, we are not dealing with objects...they are people, like us...with their flaws, their failures, their dreams...and again like us, the same blood courses through their veins.
There is no doubt, most, if not all, of these individuals are drug users...many are infected with HIV and other viruses (from dirty needles, unprotected sex, etc)...there are some who are mentally handicapped...those who are rational, but have fallen on hard times...there are the young, the old...they are often the ones that society has left behind. I once read somewhere, that the way to judge a society...it is to look at how it treats it's poor (I can no longer remember where I read this...but am not smart enough to come up with this myself:P)...in some parts of the States, the city gets a Greyhound bus and goes around town to collect all the homeless people and ship them off to a different city...in Vancouver, we just push them all to the downtown Eastside or to parts of Surrey...
In any society, there are certain things that no matter what the powers do...it is impossible to stamp out...prostitution (coined the world's oldest profession) and drug abuse are two that come to mind. The policy of most societies in the developed and developing world is to police the drug trade...try to stifle it...to use force to strangle the life out of something that cannot be killed...in my opinion, it is a futile process. In Latin America...drug lords rule...they have the money, the power AND the guns. In the States, it is estimated that with all the billions (maybe hundreds of billions) of dollars put into policing the drug trade...only 1% of the illegal drugs entering the country are stopped...I am not an economist, but to me, that is a terrible, terrible investment...it is a waste of resources...a waste of human life lost in policing this...lives lost in the gang turf wars...lives of drug users lost when they overdose on crack cocaine because it is too pure. And could these resources be put to better use...I think so...the States have a terrible literacy track record...hospitals refuse those dying, simply because they don't have health insurance...I could go on...
But what the US does is not critical here...in Canada...the "war on drugs" is less dramatic...but there are always examples... I do not know the figures...how much the Canadian government spends on policing the drug trade...hundreds of millions of dollars?...more? less? no idea, to be honest... Drug abuse, in my mind, is a problem...won't try to romanticize it the least bit...but it has to be addressed...the system is simply not working...dirty needles are killing people...one way or the other...the drug quality is killing people (can you think of any news stories where a teenager tried ecstasy (or more commonly known as "E") for the first time at a rave...and paid for it with their life...simply because the drug purity/quality was compromised?)..."druggies" killing police officers...police officers killing druggies...rival drug dealers "knocking" each other off...need I go on? It is a social problem...and a wide reaching one, at that...at the end of the day though, this is just my opinion.
I support legalization. Plain and simple. Give people safe injection houses...give them clean needles...take the power away from the drug dealer (this is simple economics..."supply and demand"...make something illegal...if there is a profit to be made, then someone will jump in and fill that demand)...treat the addicts as patients, not criminals. Pushing this problem and these people to the fringes...it is not a solution, it never will be...so why not treat them as fellow members in our society?...why not treat them as people? After all, they are... All the resources that are currently being used to fight the drug trade...put it into something more productive...fighting a battle that cannot be won on it's current front...it is silly...win it using a different strategy. Having the government provide "safe" drugs...I don't believe more people will become drug users...this is counter-intuitive. I, for one, will never try these drugs...even if they were free...and I don't think I am an exception.
Make it safe for these people...they won't go away if we ignore them...put some of the money from policing into treating them...who knows?...maybe, once we welcome them back into the fold as members of OUR society, they will one day help make our society better... Even if these individuals don't make our society better (a thought I find hard to believe), our society will be better...you can count on it!
A contentious issue, no doubt...but one worth thinking about...
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