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Gifts for all occasions in the Galleria! The "What is the Deal?" Deal-of-the-Week: March 13, 2005 Welcome to Vancouver! By Jan A. Larson Welcome to Vancouver! A slogan to encourage more tourism in the western Canadian city? Maybe a convention is coming to town? No, the city of Vancouver just rolled out the welcome mat for heroin addicts. As reported in a Fox News story the Canadian government is going to provide free heroin to addicts in three Canadian cities, Vancouver being the first. The cost to Canadian taxpayers? Chump change. Only $8 million. Ostensibly, the impetus behind this idea is to reduce drug-related crime. Vancouver police chief, Jamie Graham commented, "if this will help reduce the crime rate - I'm all for it." When I was a teenager, we had a dog whose in-house domain was limited to a landing inside the back door or the basement. Sometimes, however, when one of my siblings or myself would come into the house, we may not pay that much attention to the dog and he would come bounding into the kitchen. My mother would scramble around trying to corral the dog and put him back out where he belonged. She figured out that it was easier to get him out of the kitchen if she rewarded him with a cookie. The problem was that instead of training him to leave the kitchen to get a cookie, she really trained him to come into the kitchen. I realized this one time when I saw the dog run into the kitchen, run around under the table a couple of times and then go back out to the landing to await his reward. Just as offering a cookie attracted the dog into the house, Vancouver's free heroin offer isn't only going to reduce crime perpetrated by the local heroin addicts, it is going to attract heroin addicts with enough wherewithal to come up with bus or train fare from all over the country. As a San Francisco city councilwoman lamented a few years ago when she noted that the city had spent millions trying to solve the homeless problem, but there were more homeless than ever on the streets, Vancouver is going to end up as a haven for addicts. It isn't easy to pay for a $200 or $300 per day habit, as heroin addicts generally can't hold a job, but when you can get your fix for free ... why bother with prostitution or petty theft when you can have it all in Vancouver? The program is technically a 21-24 month "study" and some of the participants will receive methadone treatments instead of heroin. One of the goals of the study, besides reducing crime, is to determine if addicts receiving heroin or those receiving methadone are more likely to stick with their treatment. I can save the government a lot of money on that one. Those receiving the "real thing" are more likely to keep coming back for more. Offering free heroin to addicts to reduce crime is like amputating an arm to prevent hangnails or chopping down all the trees to prevent forest fires. Clear thinking people don't think this way, but apparently some Canadian politicians do. -- Send feedback to the author. The "What is the Deal?" column will appears weekly on the Pie of Knowledge website. Guest submissions are welcome and encouraged. To submit an article to "What is the Deal?" click here. To subscribe to the "What is the Deal?" mailing list and receive early notification when a new column is available, click here. The Pie of Knowledge will never, ever divulge email addresses to any third party for any reason unless so ordered by a court of law. Contributions to the Pie of Knowledge are greatly appreciated. 
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