Toronto Sun
2005.12.18
Sue-Ann Levy
LICENCE TO KILL? EVEN SOME ADDICTS SAY "SAFE INJECTION SITES" ARE HARMFUL
Council's socialists must be so high on themselves they've abandoned all reason. How else to describe their move to support a new "drug strategy" last week that seems to have more opponents -- including the police and ex-addicts -- than supporters?
How else to explain council's tacit approval of the use of illegal drugs like crack cocaine -- when this city has been reeling from an epidemic of gun violence with that same drug largely at the root of the problem?
How can it be that it's not okay with the do-gooders in the city's public health department to smoke cigarettes in virtually any public venue in the city -- yet smoking illegal crack cocaine, either at a "safe injection site" or elsewhere, seems to be condoned, as long as addicts use "safer crack kits"?
Fact is, with their 25-14 vote to proceed with the strategy, Toronto councillors gave the budget-challenged fiefdom builders in public health virtual carte blanche.
Coun. Sylvia Watson tried to get her colleagues to wait for a costing on the strategy -- which has not yet been done! -- before approving it. Her efforts fell flat. Even budget chief David Soknacki, despite his own complaints about public health's fiscal mismanagment, voted down Watson's idea.
This will not come cheap. The board of health has already spent two years and $300,000 to create the plan.
Liz Janzen, director of healthy living, told me they've asked for $250,000 to hire four staff (starting next May) to set up a new "implementation secretariat."
Isn't this city in a huge fiscal crisis? Silly me. Mayor David Miller and his spending addicts will just get their fix from taxpayers, of course -- once they gain the power to levy more charges and taxes under the new City of Toronto Act.
'SAFER CRACK KITS'
Look, there are some excellent recommendations in the drug strategy involving prevention, treatment and enforcement. But they're overshadowed by trendy "harm-reduction" schemes.
I'm talking specifically about the distribution of so-called "safer crack kits," the expansion of harm-reduction housing and consideration of a safe injection site similar to the one operating in Vancouver. In my view, they're a licence to kill.
Even addicts have contacted me in recent weeks to say these trendy schemes don't work -- that unless addicts make a conscious decision to turn their lives around, and detox is there to offer support, "safe" kits and sites won't do it.
Coun. Rob Ford, who has confronted heroin addiction problems in his own famly, begged council not to approve a strategy that would only help "ruin" an addict's life. "Unfortunately we don't have enough people in this room who have experienced drug use firsthand," he said.
He's right. I'll bet not many of them have seen crack dealing up close, either. Watson, however, has repeatedly watched them line up "like vultures" in her Parkdale-area ward when welfare cheques come out. As she put it: "Handing out crack kits has not made a difference in my neighbourhood at all."
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REMEMBER THESE NAMES. In addition to the mayor, these councillors voted for the drug strategy: Gerry Altobello, Brian Ashton, Maria Augimeri, Sandra Bussin, Shelley Carroll, Gay Cowbourne, Janet Davis, Glen DeBaeremaeker, Frank DiGiorgio, John Filion, Paula Fletcher, Adam Giambrone, Mark Grimes, Suzan Hall, Peter Li Preti, Giorgio Mammoliti, Joe Mihevc, Howard Moscoe, Joe Pantalone, Kyle Rae, Bill Saundercook, David Soknacki, Michael Thompson.
Funny thing: I polled a selection of councillors and very few would offer up their wards for a potential safe injection site.
Said Bussin: "It's been clearly indicated it (the site) would be in an industrial part of the city ... I don't represent an industrial community."
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