Ottawa Sun
Published: Thursday, March 31, 2005

Snuff pipe plan

Yesterday's front page photo and ensuing story by Nelly Elayoubi about free crack pipe kits being added to the drug paraphernalia buffet on offer in the City's controversial needle-exchange program was disturbing.

If the story were to run tomorrow morning, then I could dismiss it as a cruel April Fool's joke. Sadly, this is the city's so-called sound approach to a serious problem.

Simply stated, this strikes me as a stupendously stupid idea. Public health officials call it compassionate intervention: I call it societal negligence bordering on criminal proportions.

Now, before everyone gets up in arms about my "ignorant" opinion, let's get a few things on the table.

I acknowledge that hard-core drug use is a serious and growing problem among certain population segments in our city. And I fully believe that drug addicts need our help.

It is not their problem; it truly is our collective problem and we should, through our tax dollars, see to it that our best efforts are made -- through government and other community agencies -- to help people kick these dangerous habits, reduce the incidence of illegal drug use, and make our communities safer and better places to live.

However, I have a fundamental problem with the philosophical approach that underpins the needle-exchange program. In theory, if we provide addicts with clean and safe needles, they will not be as likely to use or share dirty needles and over a period of time, we can arrest the growth and ultimately the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C infections amongst this population group.

But here's the rub. Public health officials haven't provided us with any evidence of reducing infection rates through the needle exchange program to date. On the contrary, we have the second highest rate of HIV infection in Canada and the dubious honour of having the highest rate of hep C infection in Ontario among intravenous drug users. Somehow I don't think these high rankings are going to show up as tag lines in the next "Come visit Ottawa" campaign. But I digress.

Furthermore, the approach of giving drug addicts cleaner tools to ply their trade runs counter to the intervention and remediation strategies we employ when tackling other societal problems. Imagine if we employed the same needle-exchange philosophy in other areas.

Would we tackle gang violence in a neighbourhood by arming competing gangs with more knives and guns? Would we combat the problem of escalating suburban break-ins by giving local thieves alarm codes and family work schedules? Would we equip local graffiti vandals with new cans of spray paint?

Do we give the alcoholic a gift card to the LCBO? Do we park an express bus to the casino outside a Gamblers Anonymous meeting? Should we give smokers light cigarettes to help them kick their nicotine habit?

All these ideas are not only ludicrous; they are offensive in the extreme. But they make my point: When it comes to changing societal attitudes about behaviours which are just plain wrong, we discourage them -- either by suasion or by force of law -- and never encourage the offending behaviours.

Yet when it comes to hard-core drug addiction, proponents of needle-exchange philosophy are in effect asking us to look the other way and tolerate or condone illegal behaviour by giving out free needles and crack pipe kits.

Still not convinced? Then let's go right to the issue that helped sink my Conservative friends in the last election: Child pornography.

Do we allow convicted pedophiles to re-integrate into the community by offering them housing right next to a local primary school? Of course we don't, it is a repugnant and revolting suggestion. Yet it is this same logic (or rather, illogic) that underlies the needle-exchange program.

Is there anyone at city hall who can marshal a majority of council to just say no to the nuttiness of a needle-exchange program and similar efforts?

As long as we allow this warped sense of compassion to drive our strategies and efforts in dealing with hard-core drug abuse and addiction in our community, we help no one ... neither the addicts themselves nor the community at large. And that is societal negligence bordering on criminal proportions, financed by your hard-earned property tax dollars.