Almost Canadian

This was in our local rag yesterday. It is from someone that, I believe, was a former Crown Prosecutor in BC. In light of the recent debates on here, I thought some may find it interesting: Let's send drug addicts to isolated work camps

dbd33

He isn't much given to presenting a coherent argument:

"During the 1970s, the late unlamented Trudeau government reversed these priorities. Pierre Trudeau's solicitor general, Jean-Paul Goyer, said to Parliament in 1971: "We have decided from now on to stress the rehabilitation of individuals rather than the protection of society.

Since then, the increase of crime has conclusively demonstrated the failure of this policy, and the endangerment of the public which resulted."

That would only hold if nothing else in British Columbia, or the wider world, changed in the same period.

"That brings me to the safe house shooting gallery called Insite, and the handing out of free crack pipes. Those with good intentions think they are helping drug addicts to be healthy."

No they don't. They're pragmatists.

From unproven assertions we leap to an unrelated proposal:

"I suggest isolated work camps, where drug addicts will go cold turkey or are weaned off drugs in a medically supervised way. They will be taught a work ethic, by doing work of a meaningful type, such as farming or manufacturing. "

followed by bizarre conclusion:

"Think of the addict camp as a shelter, but one with the ability to make a drug addict into a drug-free person with some reasonable prospect of a productive life. The alternative is a life of crime, and the destruction of the addict and all those close to him."

Well no, it's not a binary choice.

As it goes, I know someone who's employed to run one of those camps. "Wilderness therapist" or some such bollocks is his title. People go to the camp, they get off drugs, they get high on life and then they go home and get some more drugs. Camp work is a steady job because the inmates are back after two years; you only need two sets, ideally three, to have an income for life. I suppose the columnist would use government money to fund these facilities while privatising the profits, a fine idea for the shareholders, useless for the rest of us.

This thread does worry me slightly. As someone who has a child who prosecutes for the Feds in BC what I wanna know is, is the sort of decline in reasoning power illustrated by our sloppy columnist an inevitable consequence of that line of work?

Almost Canadian

I am not going to disagree with you. However, if what he says about Mr. Goyer is correct, I doubt very much that most voters would agree with position put forward. I suspect most would state that the protection of the public should take a higher priority than the rehabilitation of individuals.

Pragmatic in what way though?

I continue to attempt to convince any that will listen that the quality of lawyers in Canada is not very high. Most of the time, it appears to fall on deaf ears.

dbd33

Pragmatic in the sense that think the provision of drug paraphenalia, typically needles, is a means to harm reduction, less spreading of AIDS for example, rather than a means to introduce health to street drug addicts.

Almost Canadian

OK. I have to admit that a small part of me agrees with the proposition put forward in the article that we should just allow natural selection to run its course. Drug addicts giving diseases to other drug addicts does not cause me to lose any sleep at night. Are there many instances of drug addicts passing on such diseases to those outside of their circle?

London Mike

Victims. Next thread.

ExKiwilass

I don't like the question - it's too black and white.

I like Gabor Mate's take on drug addiction. Of course it's way too hard for most people to contemplate social change rather than a. punishing people or b. just treating the addiction, not the underlying cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_M...28physician%29

Someone close to me is going into rehab soon and I find what Gabor says bang on about stress, childhood etc increasing risk factors for addiction.