Detectives warned that a dangerous bad batch of heroin may be circulating after a man in his early 70s was found dead by paramedics at an address in Arlington Road, Camden Town

• HAVING read the CNJ stories and Comment on Camden’s alarming hard drug situation (August 17) I feel it imperative to point out that, although “safe” places for using drugs might well save lives they are not a solution to addiction, (Bad batch of heroin warnings as one man dies and two rushed to hospital and Enlightened policies could help reduce drug deaths).

There is, of course, no such thing as the “safe” use of hard drugs for addicts. On their own, such “shooting galleries” or whatever clever name we give them, will only prolong the purgatory
of addiction for the suffering addict.

If we give an addict drugs and make him or her feel at home with that, they will simply continue to use. I know this because I was once a suffering drug addict. And had I been made to feel comfortable about my drug use when I was active I would almost certainly never have stopped.

The point is, if we are to offer addicts “safe” facilities for them to continue to get loaded, then we must at the very least also offer them the option of 12-step meetings or similarly effective therapies, on site, actively to steer them away from drug abuse and towards recovery, abstinence and personal growth.

The main objective must be to get addicts off drugs completely not to simply enable their addiction.

SEBASTIAN WOCKER
Editor, Hampstead Village Voice