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 It was repealed as an utter failure.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
21-20
Some interesting points in your letter!
There are people who do drugs and are not addicts and there are people who are addicts that are not committing crimes to support their addiction, but many of the ones we see on our streets as in the encampment at the civic center were committing crimes and threatening people in the area.
Do we just allow them so slowly kill themselves while they continue to destroy the lives of others and the community?
Drug courts put people into treatment and if they follow the program there is no criminal record.
Most of us are aware there is often adverse childhood experiences, or traumatic events that haunt people to the point they want to fog their mind processes with drugs to escape the pain it brings, and that is why effective treatment programs deal with those issues and you cannot deal with effectively in programs that only last for a few weeks or 3 months.
You mention China, and alcohol: Opium was introduced to China in the Tang Dynasty 1500 years ago and in the 1800’s suffered an opium crisis due to British and French traders flooding China with more opium during their trade missions, thus the opium wars. China tried was angry that the ‘Colonialists’ were getting their people addicted on purpose to gain more power. I will stop there since to make the point clear would take an essay.
The point is some believe China is now using this same method, by flooding North America with opioids, either made in China or by supplying the Mexican Cartels with precursor chemicals — the building blocks of fentanyl and other opioids, to produce synthetic fentanyl in Mexico, to weaken the US and Canada as part of their strategic plans to dominate the world. They want North America!
This goes much deeper than just the dealer on the street.
Sadly, we see too many people hit the streets of Lethbridge after being banished from their Indigenous communities, and they often die on our streets from not being treated for their addictions, but they are instead, enabled by all those who think they are being compassionate, but who are actually allowing them to slowly kill themselves while living in tents, encampments, selling their bodies while being trafficked by their ‘husbands’ and committing crimes to support their addictions.
It is sad that so many have been brainwashed by the ‘progressivism’ that pushes policies that have proven to be failures, including the 20 years of harm reduction in BC. So many other cities followed these same trains of thought that saw little treatment for these people, but instead hundreds of non-profit groups absorbing funds that could be used for the treatment of these people to give them a chance in life, used to enable them to do drugs by giving them all the paraphernalia they need, the narcan they need, and even food delivered to them right to their encampments or to where they are on streets, so they can use all their money for drugs.
I have watched too many needless deaths and the progressivism is alive and well in Lethbridge in our university, where instead of teaching, the professors focus on promoting this failed approach on our streets, while attacking anyone who shows it doesn’t work or presents better alternatives.
It is also found at City Hall and in the other levels of government, pushed by the non-profits who are making money from the people who die on our streets.
I have watched too many die! Young people who I spoke with often and tried to lead them to treatment. The fact is that many are criminals because of their addiction. There is still hope, but that is only going to come for many by forced treatment.
Before you say it: Forced treatment has been very effective in the US and now in Alberta where the drug courts get high success rates, higher than many voluntary treatment programs!
You are correct when you state that drug addiction is not restricted to street people, but it is the people on the streets committing crimes and refusing treatment that would stop those crimes, and save their lives!
We seem to have done a pretty good job at managing alcohol consumption without resorting to forced treatment. Perhaps we should look there for guidance before jumping to extremes.
hard to fathom you have such a high net neg to your comment. the thing is, control freaks are all about their self righteousness foremost. even fascism is not beyond their approval if it means their preferences to living get to be forced upon others.
if drugs were legal – which they must be, as the state does not get to control one’s body and one’s tastes – then there would quality control (safety, as with liquor) and they would be affordable (such as coffee, which is perhaps the most labour intensive and expensive shrub to bring to market. once safe, there would be far fewer overdoses taxing our care workers. once as cheap as they would otherwise be, there would be no criminal fallout to support use. we would still have some addicts, but the fallout/costs to society would be quite ameliorated.
however, as the negs pile up on this comment, my first paragraph will be underscored as correct – this is most about controlism and not about decency and compassion and the right we each have to choose our way (of course. always with respect to upholding the rights of others).
The negatives don’t surprise me, people want to hate drug addicts, and they also like their alcohol. Pointing out they aren’t so different from the one’s they hate puts them on the defensive, and clicking the negative button is easier than facing their own prejudices.
Always appreciate your take on the issues in our city!
Sad to see so many ill informed.
yes – hitler was pretty good, too, only he went too far…right?
“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Since when is the possession/trafficing/supplying/manufacturing of illicit drugs NOT criminal? Tad, perhaps you should take a few minutes and watched the documentary entitled “Vancouver is dying” or at least research the related individual who produced the documentary, Aaron Gunn. The names may change, but the scenario may as well be “Lethbridge is dying”. In closing, do you believe Tad, that drug addicts did not choose to take drugs in the first place (yes, there are (limited) some who became addicted due to medical induction while in treatment) Regarding illegal drug usage, “Russian Roulette” anyone?
thank you, Tad, for yet more wisdom. i appreciate most that your wisdom, while in part an outgrowth of your vast experience, comes from your heart.
most people, even present addicts, do not want to be an addict. most people – the vast majority – use drugs and alcohol responsibly. moreover, the worst of the addictions are due to synthetics foremost – such as “opioids” and meth – and then next to substances refined from natural products, such as heroin and morphine (each refined from opium and each far more addictive than opium…ditto cocaine and so-called crack cocaine, which are refined from the coca leaf, which is hardly as addictive as is the cocaine derivative).
moving forward, if ever we will, it must be acknowledged the criminalisation of drugs, not usage, is what is criminal: it infringes on one’s right to our body; and, it has created far greater humanitarian issues than anything it might have sought to resolve. the net result of crimes against humanity drug laws is that we have had a lot of unusually highly addictive and artificially expensive drugs come to the fore. additionally, as Tad has pointed out, we have created wealth and power for organised criminal predators. moreover, we wasted shiploads of public money on unnecessary policing, prosecution, and incarceration.
we will not, ever, legislate away addictions – is that not yet obvious to the thick headed, prejudiced, holier than thou fools that have witnessed close to 100 years of failed “drug” prohibition?
thus, to waste vast amounts of money and resource to police, prosecute, and jail drug users and addicts is what is in fact unjust and criminal. that has also created an undue burden on both the user and the “good” folk of society. if drugs were legal, they would be cheap. drugs, at least the natural ones “god” gave to us, are weeds, flowers, shrubs…and the most expensive “drug” that i know of to bring to market is coffee.
if we have legal drugs, drugs will be affordable (think coffee, even liquor) and addicts will not need to steal to use. as well, we may be able to reduce addictions and overdoses, through having available natural and non-refined drugs that are much less addictive and that are quality controlled. most surely, we will significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate, the criminality an addict presently needs to resort to in order to pay for well over priced drugs, all made over priced by our crimes against humanity drug laws.
is it safety and dignity that we most care about, or enforcing one’s lifestyle choices upon others? indeed, it appears too often to be the latter. and such folk are willing to have us waste as much resource/wealth to undermine the most basic freedom – legislating away the right we each have to our body – in order to force their way upon another.
Biff you do not understand the new system in place with drug courts that needs to be expanded.
They do not put you in jail, they send you to treatment! They need police when fire/EMS are getting assaulted, even shot at in Vancouver when they enter encampments for overdoses.
You idea of legal drugs will fail in Vancouver and failed in Portland 2 years after they went down that road. Many of these addicts got addicted from legal prescribed drugs.
I would suggest you watch the video below, then ask yourself is this what you want for our city? How many lives are being lost and families destroyed because of these bad policies?
The compassionated thing to do would be getting them into treatment so they can have a chance in life and not be on the streets, slowly killing themselves.
Portland’s Meltdown: A Progressive Experiment That ‘Has Gone Colossally Bad’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9478Uqe7co
How many people have you watched slowly kill themselves, seeing their bodies prematurely age and rot as they continue to use drugs and hang on the streets? I have seen too many and still see their faces and know their names!
if drugs were legal – which they must be, as the state does not get to control one’s body and one’s tastes – then there would quality control (safety, as with liquor) and they would be affordable (such as coffee, which is perhaps the most labour intensive and expensive shrub to bring to market. once safe, there would be far fewer overdoses taxing our care workers. once as cheap as they would otherwise be, there would be no criminal fallout to support use. we would still have some addicts, but the fallout/costs to society would be quite ameliorated.
Thanks Tad – I appreciate the compassionate response here and the comparison with alcohol. Without a safe regulated supply, the many available safe consumption sites (which we call bars), and the culture around helping people to consume safely such as designated driver campaigns and programs like operation rednose, we may be talking about drunks in much the same way as we talk about addicts now.
Time to stop finding ways to other the people around us and start finding ways to help them on their way to better health.
So Mr. Mitsui, it is not a criminal matter when someone breaks into you garage, steals your bike and anything else that is valuable, leaving you with a $1000 deductible cost to repair the damage and replace the stolen items?
Oh Boy
if drugs were legal – which they must be, as the state does not get to control one’s body and one’s tastes – then there would quality control (safety, as with liquor) and they would be affordable (such as coffee, which is perhaps the most labour intensive and expensive shrub to bring to market. once safe, there would be far fewer overdoses taxing our care workers. once as cheap as they would otherwise be, there would be no criminal fallout to support use. we would still have some addicts, but the fallout/costs to society would be quite ameliorated.
Person A: It shouldn’t be illegal to be an alcoholic, it’s a health issue that needs to be addressed by providing support.
Person B: SO IT’S NOT A CRIME TO DRIVE DRUNK AND KILL A FAMILY OUT FOR A WALK?!?!!?!?
That’s you. You’re person B. Certain health problems are associated with certain crimes – that doesn’t make the health problem itself criminal.
the “fire” is due to drug laws. moreover, criminalising choices, and one’s sole right to their body, is what started the fire, and is what continues to fan the flames. we agree this is a law and order issue, only we disagree as to our take on law and order. i have no tolerance for fascism.