Narconon Drug Addiction News

Trois-Rivières, Canada – Drug addiction is quite real and can destroy a person’s life, but it’s not a worthy defense when going up against the legal system. The bottom line is everyone who commits a crime should be held accountable and drug addiction is not an excuse for committing violent crimes. However, should an addict be simply thrown in jail or be rehabilitated as well.

Following the Vital Signs report from Community Foundations of Canada, which stated that Kelowna, BC had the highest violent crime rates out of 16 Canadian cities surveyed in 2008, Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill Mckinnon called a press conference on October 7, 2009. First he reassured his citizens by saying they had no reason to feel unsafe in their community, second he made the point that it was not enough to simply jail drug users: “Drugs and violent crime tend to go hand in hand when you have situations where people are running up a debt incurred because of their addictions, and they can’t pay it. Often these people need help other than just being put in jail,” McKinnon stated.

Drug court has been a relatively successful system to rehabilitate the nonviolent substance abusing offenders as an alternative of sending them strait to prison. However, what should be done with the addicts who commit violent crimes?

“Without lessening the responsibility of the offenders for their crimes, a drug addict offender should be given the opportunity to do an effective drug rehabilitation program,” stated Nick Hayes, a certified chemical dependency counselor and representative of Narconon Trois-Rivières. He added, “It is no secret that drug addiction leads to desperate acts. Thus it’s worthwhile for the society, not to mention the family and the individual, to rehabilitate a drug or alcohol addict as most of the crimes committed in our cities are related to drug addiction.”

© 2009 Narconon Trois-Rivières. All Rights Reserved.
NARCONON is a trademark and service mark owned by Association for Better Living and Education and is used with its permission.

Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada 8/06/2009 02:46 GMT

The downtown east-side of Vancouver is definitely one of the more popular downtown sections of any major city in Canada.  It’s not necessarily popular for its breathtaking sites and tourist attractions, unless you are filming an in-depth documentary on drug addiction, crime, and prostitution, which has been done with much success.  This particular section of Vancouver; however, does have some significant history to it, when speaking about drug addiction.  Operating primarily with a harm reduction program, it was the place for one of the first free needle exchange programs in North America, started by John Turvey.  When the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users program (VANDU) first started in 1989, they managed to give out close to 130 thousand free needles to local drug users.  Since then, close to three million needles are given out each year to over ten thousand addicts.

In 2003, one of the first safe injection sites opened in the downtown east-side.   In 1998 there were 396 drug overdoses in the city of Vancouver, and when 2008 rolled around there were only 133 drug overdoses.  “Harm reduction does look out for the safety of the addict especially in preventing the spread of disease and infection,” says Nick Hayes, a representative of Narconon Trois-Rivieres, “this combined with effective treatment can help lower the recidivism rate.”  In 1997, there were close to 1200 arrests in the downtown east-side, which made up of 75% of the cities total arrests.  In 2002, there were 1782 arrests made, but this only comprised of 36% of the total arrests in the city of Vancouver.  For more information call 1-877-782-7409, or visit the Narconon drug rehab website at, http://narconon.ca/

(Ref:  The Province “Did you know… Drug arrests waning, drug deaths also down” Canada.com 7 July 2009: http://www.theprovince.com/know+Drug+arrests+waning+drug+deaths+also+down/1765919/story.html)

© 2009 Narconon Trois-Rivières. All Rights Reserved.

NARCONON is a trademark and service mark owned by Association for Better Living and Education and is used with its permission.