what's wrong with Canada?

Before I go on this rant I'd like to apologize; it's spring break and I have nothing else to talk about.

Fox News reports on a new drug program in Vancouver. Heroine addicts go to the hospital, request some heroine, and are given it by the doctors. It’s one thing to have legal drugs, but free drugs? Actually, it isn’t free. The taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s right Bob and Dave McKenzie, your tax dollars are buying some junkie his chiva.

The Hosers have two justifications for the program. The first is that it will cut down on HIV, hepatitis and overdose death. I know I’ll sound like a heartless bastard for saying this (which I am, by the way), but I think that takes away from the one redeeming quality of heroine use. Your average addict is more or less useless to society: he can’t work, provide for a family or pay taxes. In a socialist country like Canada, that addict is capable of receiving free health care, government housing and a national minimum income subsidy. The only thing that stopped this drain was the addict would eventually kill himself. Death was the only deterrent to drug use in Vancouver, so now there isn’t a good reason why one shouldn’t use heroine.

The other justification is that the program will cut down on crime. I think this depends on your definition of crime. If a person or group takes your money with the threat of stabbing you, you’ve been robbed. If that same person or group takes your money with the threat of confining you indefinitely, you’ve been taxed. The Canadian people are still paying for the drugs, only now the money goes away in their taxes instead in an alley. This number will get progressively bigger as the number of new addicts grows (as it always does), but the number of old addicts doesn’t change (because they won’t bloody die anymore).

Overall, it just feels wrong to me to have the taxpayers funding a self destructive habit that serves only to hurt society. So much for the common good.