Drug addictions a health crisis, not a criminal matter

By Lethbridge Herald on April 18, 2023.

Editor:

I believe that we have to look into the current drug addiction crisis more deeply than as a mere law and order issue. Neither is it a problem of homelessness nor of a certain racial group. Without recognizing those deeper and wider issues, the problem will never go away.

Remember during 1920’s the U.S. made alcohol illegal and fought it as a mere criminal matter. It was repealed as an utter failure. It created a more serious problem such as the emergence of organized criminal organizations.

 I personally knew three drug addicts. None of them was a criminal. My maternal grandfather, an Old Testament professor and a young parishioner in the congregation. 

Grandpa Dr. Yuji Takeda was a veterinarian who served in the Imperial Japanese Army and participated in the battles in Northeast China, Manchuria fighting the Tsarist Russian Army. He saw the worst and came home a heroin addict to cope with what today is termed as PTSD. He remained an addict all his life but lived productively and died in his late 80s. I remember a distinct smell of disinfectant whenever I went into his den. As a vet, he had easy access to the substance.

Professor Dr. Zenta Watanabe was a well known Old Testament scholar in Japan. He earned his doctorate in Heidelberg, Germany. Many students took his lectures. His guest preaching was a blockbuster everywhere. He became an addict from prescription drugs. He reached the age of 90 before he passed. I still remember his constantly- shaking hands from addiction. 

During the 1970’s I tried to help a young man who wanted to kick an addiction in Vancouver. When Japanese Canadians were allowed to come back to the B.C. coast in 1949, he left the internment camp, and came to Vancouver alone before his family. 

It was still a difficult time when anti-Japanese sentiment was still strong in B.C. When the rest of the family came to Vancouver, he joined them. He didn’t hide his problem. He tried hard to kick the habit with the help of his family but never succeeded. 

In my opinion, drug addiction is not a crime, just like alcohol and nicotine addiction aren’t. Trafficking is. Many people became addicted from prescriptions as those who became one from recreational use. It is a public health crisis. 

The March 4-10 issue of the British weekly “The Economist” shows that drug addiction is more widespread. It reports (page 77) the result of the research on death by drug overdose.

I didn’t know that the deaths by drug overdose among white middle-class men were more prevalent than I had suspected. It proves that the prevailing assumption is wrong which is based on prejudice.

Drug addiction is not restricted to street people. Neither does it involve only the minority racial groups. The problem is among a much wider spectrum of population, which therefore should be seen as a public health crisis.

In 2015, according to the same Economist article, Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a landmark paper on the “death of despair” in America. They found that mortality had been rising among middle-aged white men in general of the age between 45 and 64, thanks to a surge in drug overdoses, alcohol-related illnesses, and suicides. 

One 2019 study by Congressional research shows that 70 per cent of the rise by deaths-of-despair came from drug use alone. 

What is interesting is the conclusion that the increase in the deaths of despair did not come from economic malaise. A paper by Tyler Giles of Wellesley College, Daniel Hungerman of Notre Dame and Oostrom of Ohio State universities, states that the increase in the death of despair stems partly from weakening social ties well before the current rise in opioid use beginning around 1990. 

Humans enjoy many good things. They are gifts of nature. But they can be poisonous when taken without control. As a diabetic I know sugar can kill me. 

A legend has it that an ancient Chinese emperor tasted alcohol for the first time and said, “this is the most delightful drink I have tasted, but it can surely destroy a nation.” 

Opioid kills pain and makes our lives more livable. Its use is common: look at the contents of many painkillers. It was used a few centuries ago as a recreational substance like we take alcohol today. Conan Dole took it regularly, as did Charles Dickens and many other famous artists and writers. It was not illegal. Drug problems are not a criminal matter. It’s a health crisis. Let’s deal with it as such.

Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui

Lethbridge