Even the liberals’ Maclean’s magazine readers agree in their online poll today:
Should the federal government be funding research that provides free heroin to hard-core addicts?
Yes 40%
No 60%
The correct answer is of course No, which is the answer you’ll naturally gravitate toward as a normal Canadian, unless you’re high on crack. Or (and this list of alternatives is meant to be read as mutually exclusive to the aforementioned, but it’s a free country) you’re a Liberal Party MP or member, or of course a member of the you’ve got to be kidding tribe of state-reliance-building socialists. Or you watch CBC. That group, as a whole, explains the 40%.
I’m not sure of the precise context in which Maclean’s decided to present this poll, but I’m linking it to the story below — a story which surprised me because I thought it was strangely brave and sensible for the media to run; and which if Joe Average W. Conservative had said it, he would have been the target of mass hysteria and outrage and mocking from the Left, who would no doubt use the occasion to mock “religious right” conservatives for their “stupid”, “anti-science”, “religious” beliefs; and which I can only conclude was an editorial decision which itself may have been induced by the use of psychotropic drugs in the news media that day:
Addiction: New research suggests it’s a choice
Drug or alcohol addiction is not a disease, says Harvard psychologist, but a matter of free will[…]
Q: The concept of safe injection sites for intravenous drug users has been a hot topic here in Canada. We had a pilot project in Vancouver, which aimed to reduce associated harms, like the spread of HIV or hepatitis. Critics of the concept say it sends the message that drug use is okay. What do you think?
A: I don’t know that free needles will make someone a heroin addict. But would somebody say to themselves, “I don’t need to quit if I can find a place to inject safely”? Yeah, they might.
Q: There’s also the matter of putting the imprimatur of government on something it supposedly disapproves of.
A: Yes, and I think those things can be pretty important. In the U.S., when the surgeon general’s report came out in 1964 saying smoking was bad for your health, it had an impact. Everybody knew it couldn’t be good for you. But when it became official, people actually began to stop smoking. So those are the sorts of things you would have to consider [regarding safe injection sites] …
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