Living in Victoria for quite a while I couldn’t avoid to perceive the approach towards drug addicts in downtown. Just to give some context, downtown Victoria is the most “dangerous” place in the city because of the presence of the street-engaged youth, the homeless and alike. They don’t mess with people around, they usually are asking for money on the corners or just trading drug calmly in front of everybody. As a consequence, the government of British Columbia started to apply a new tactic, the harm reduction approach.
Different from the classic approach that consists in the abstinence-based model (in which the individual is exposed to a dichotomy, what means that he/she is either “clean” or “dirty”, without an “in between” process that may help the person to acknowledge in a more profound manner his/her problem and ways to avoid the abuse), the harm reduction proposes a more friendly style, in which the individual is fully respect in his/her drug use. And then we have the needle exchange program, in which the government provides addicts with sterilized syringes and in some cases with crack pipes. This strategy helps to reduce the number of spread diseases by blood, such HIV, HCV and Hepatitis B, as a consequence it helps the government reduce millions in medical treatment for those contaminated. This needle exchange can happens in fixed sites, or in random places, like the streets.
Here in Victoria they have one of those save injection sites, which are places addressed to addicted individuals to have their drug dose administrated. The objective is to provide a safe and clean space for the addicted person. It causes also lots of talking about whether or not the government is helping people to keep their addiction, providing them even with the prescribed drug (like cocaine or heroin) by a doctor that is paid by public funds. A structure that requires many workers like nurses, doctors, social workers… Besides, it requires a building, equipments, and more people to maintain everything working well.
Well, I myself confess that I talked badly about the project, and, of course, I was very surprised in knowing that the Canadian government subsided the drug addiction. But after seeing a documentary with some drug addicts of the project and reading a little bit more about it, I am inclined to agree that this is a better approach than the traditional one, and I may list some reasons:
- First of all, in the prescribed drug program are not allowed young people are not allowed; the focus are those that deals with the addiction for ages and tried many treatments, but they were not successful. So, they try to stop little by little, with a smaller dose time by time.
- Secondly, the needle trade definitely helps to avoid the spread of diseases, and also make the marginalized think that they are part of the system too. It is not because they do not have means that they not have dignity.
- Finally, human beings do not work in an entire dychotomical model. God/bad, black/white, cold/hot, bitter/sweet… Humanity is in between, and so is the possible cure for our flaws.
I am a chocolate addict, and I know that simply avoiding it (as I did before) is not going me to stop eating and enjoying it in larger doses. So, why not try it differently?
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