Free heroin no healer

I am outraged by your March 31 cover story "Heroin for Health," which highlights a government program that sets chemical dependency treatment back decades, but appreciate your efforts to enlighten the public on a very serious issue.

The story indicated that $8-million will be spent on the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI), a government program that will supply health officials in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto with the resources to distribute injectable heroin (in combination with oral methadone) to a select group of people with heroin dependencies. As the executive director of the Waismann Institute, which is dedicated to the advanced treatment of opiate dependency, I think it is a crime against human nature to facilitate this disease rather than find a cure.

First, it is pitiful that the priority of the federal Canadian Institute of Health Research is not to heal people of this medical problem, but to protect society from them by perpetuating their disease. While it may benefit the rest of society to see a decrease in prostitution, crime and homelessness, such a measure would not help to cure those individuals who are suffering from dependency.

Second, determining that all participants will receive the same daily dose illustrates the program's ignorance to the medical disease of opiate dependency. Every person who has developed a chemical dependency requires a specific amount of opiates in order to curb cravings and suppress withdrawal symptoms. By distributing a predetermined amount of heroin through this new government program, some individuals may become over medicated and more dangerously reliant as a result, while others may receive too little and experience withdrawal symptoms, which would ultimately force them to the streets to seek out more drugs to satiate their cravings.

Third, this new program would supply heroin injections to select drug users, but how exactly is the government going to produce this heroin? In trying to create a systematic solution, they may actually contribute to the problem at hand. Will they be contributing to the growth of the poppy plant? By opening the door to drug production, what is next? Cocaine? Amphetamines? A drug buffet on Sundays?

Finally (and what disheartens me most), NAOMI will convince individuals who have unfortunately fallen into drug dependency that their cause is hopeless - so hopeless that the government will supply them with the very drug that suppresses their potential. Instead of receiving drugs that perpetuate bad habits, the people who have become dependent on opiates would be better served by educating them about the details of their physical dependency, specifically how and why their brain requires the drug to function and how they can correct their chemical imbalances with medical treatment. As in the treatment of other medical diseases, being informed about their disease can instill hope that will motivate them to fight against dependency, and become drug free.

The Waismann Method provides advanced treatment for heroin and other opiate dependencies with the goal of giving patients a drug-free life. My experiences have given me hope that the lives of these users can be turned around. It angers me to see this organization give up on the promise of healing these people, and I hope that this ridiculous program does not find a home in the United States.

» Clare Waismann, Director, Waismann Institute, Beverly Hills, CA, USA

Whitey wrong

I am hopeless to decipher what point Kristian Gravenor is trying to make in "Whitey on the Skids" [Kristian Perspective, April 7]. If he is attacking the ever-changing Canadian constitution and our ever-changing society, he might consider his ever-changing argument (how Canadian!).

Rich, poor, intelligent, ignorant. Put those four words together in any combination and you come up with a broad spectrum of people. Then add race to the lot and things get a tad muddled. Add injustice and people begin pointing fingers. However, it is not an exclusively race-related issue that visible minorities are driving cabs. There are other mitigating factors: language, immigration status, education level, capitalist economy, etc.

Also, consider that levels of prosperity and/or intelligence and injustice are not race-specific. In Jonathan Franzen's novel Twenty-Seventh City, the underhanded political deals in St. Louis, Missouri, were orchestrated by an East Indian woman. In Ursula Heigi's Stones From the River, the main character is a blond-haired, blue-eyed German who goes into hiding because of her midget status. In American History X black/white relations are at a point where neither race is blameless.

» Jeanie Keogh

Defending Resto Bizarro

To the anonymous philistine last week who felt compelled to attack Alice and Yanka's Resto Bizarro [Letters, April 7]: look, the column only runs about once a month; if you don't like it, just don't read it. Meanwhile, please let those of us who do enjoy their vernacular-heavy writing style and off-kilter sense of humour do so in peace. The Mirror in general, and Alice & Yanka's columns specifically, aren't even targeted at tourists (just look at the advertising); so why should their alleged preferences concern us?

» Sean Mallard

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