Life As Performance Art 144

We have an organization in my city made up of drug addicts (oops, I mean to say, drug users. Silly me!) and they have absolutely nothing to do with self-help or support towards recovery. In fact none of them seem even remotely interested in recovery from their addictions because they don't want to recover from their drug dependency. They only want to be left alone, treated with kindness and respect and to be given an eternal never-ending and forever flowing supply of all the free drugs they want, funded of course by you and me, Gentle Reader, and other taxpayers. Oh yes, I know I must sound so dreadfully right wing, reactionary and conservative. Or maybe I am just fed up and emotionally burnt out after hearing about death after overdose death, the growing and exponential misery in our own Downtown Eastside, and the fact that only one of the Four Pillars approach, harm-reduction, is being practiced or pursued here, while completely ignoring the other three pillars: Prevention. Enforcement. And especially Treatment. To make things worse, one of the most deplorable local excuses for public social activism has also become the most vocal spokesperson for harm reduction and of course for this network of drug users. I will not mention his name here, (let's just say that he has a rather light complexion) but he is a self-disclosed heroin addict with absolutely no interest in recovery. This man is also highly educated, highly articulate, very intelligent and charismatic. He is likely also a narcissist, hence his love for publicity and his talent for getting in the news at least once a week. He has a huge public profile and many look up to him as hero and mentor. Kind of a tragic Nietzscheian anti-hero, forever lifting his noble middle finger to the establishment while protesting for his right to publicly destroy himself and drag as many down with him as would want to go flowing with him down this guy's personal toilet bowl. And what does this individual offer as role modelling? Like a spoilt, entitled teeanger of rich parents, whining and demanding for drugs, free drugs, screw recovery, screw any move towards actually taking responsibility for his life and moving forward as a role model for recovery and empowerment, just give him and his friends all the heroin they want. That is harm reduction, Vancouver style. This is worse than disgraceful. This is not harm reduction. This is harm production. Yes, I agree that heroin should be at least decriminalized if not legalized. I agree that it has to be taken out of the control and purview of the criminals and narcotraficantes, local and international. But by giving free candy without strings attached we are not doing a thing to tackle the very heart and soul of the problem. Addiction is a disease and it has to be tackled as a disease, and this means making treatment widely available and obligatory. No treatment, no candy should be the rule. If they're not ready yet, then that's okay, but as a condition for their free heroin they should still have to be forced, if necessary, to attend group and education sessions about their addictions and the necessity for treatment and no one should be allowed to skip out. No, don't criminalize or stigmatize drug users. But make treatment every bit as available as it should be obligatory. Nothing is going to change as long as they are just given enough drugs to kill themselves, even in a safe injection site. There will, of course, be many cases where treatment is going to be impossible. Does this sound harsh? Probably. But I have worked in various support capacities for years with people with addictions, and you know something, Gentle Reader? By simply enabling and coddling them like broken little children is not doing anyone a favour. Yes, they are broken, yes addictions often have their roots in child abuse, systemic and structural poverty, racism, you name it. But no one is going to recover if they are not treated like adults and encouraged to take responsibility for their lives and for their own recovery. And all stops have to be pulled out in order to facilitate recovery. Incarceration and criminalization, by the way, are not a solution. The community supports have to be created and consolidated until with a combination, of housing, treatment, counselling, financial support and programs towards education and employment, there will simply be no cracks left in the system that anyone can fall through. This is going to be a huge undertaking- We need an informed, educated and compassionate public, electing informed, educated and compassionate politicians, and this is still sadly and tragically lacking in our country. In the meantime, please do not nauseate me about our booming and robust economy. So long as one person remains homeless and or stranded on the street with addictions, then it is too painfully clear that our lovely economy is nothing but a fantasy, beautiful fiction for garnering more votes in the next election, no more and no less, darlings.