Saturday, March 1, 2008

Drugs in Denmark



I’ll have to preface this by saying my drug using experience is very limited – if you take into consideration my worst attempt at smoking pot and ending up parking my car with a girlfriend at the time on top of a fully-flowered roundabout. She didn’t realise either which goes to show how stoned we must have been.

My reason for not exploring the obvious wonders of drugs is quite simple. I have a very indulgent personality and if it felt good, it (whichever poison that may be) would have me for life. And, they must feel good because so many people use them.

In Denmark, they’ve been debating about whether or not to offer heroin legally to some drug addicts who are determined to be, “beyond the reach of other detox methods”. I’m not sure quite what that means – it must be either those who’ve tried to go clean a number of times and failed and maybe those who just can’t or don’t want to stop.

According to the article I read, the argument to or not to has been going on for fifteen years. It’s similar in Australia. I can understand those not wanting it to be available by prescription but, at the same time, I couldn’t help noticing the accompanying picture of some extremely dirty fingernails, a gnarly looking hand aiming a syringe into a just-boiled concoction in a pretty filthy looking spoon. That, to me, is one of the worst parts – that some, (not all) addicts become creatures of the streets, live in squalor and things like personal hygiene go right out the window.

If being able to get the drug means they no longer have to steal and spend so much of their lives worrying about where they’re going to get the next dose, they might actually have time to live a bit and do away with the sub-sub culture ‘lifestyle’.

3 comments:

N said...

Interesting but I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

NotQuiteDanish said...

No, I understand. I'm not sure either. OTOH, I also don't like seeing 'street junkies'. It makes me feel quite depressed. Some years ago at a party, I met a woman who worked with addicts and she told me how some addicts actually hold down jobs and live lives but can't get off the drug. My thinking is if people were able to get it by prescription, maybe they could make a life for themselves and not be drawn into the 'underworld'. But, as you point out, it's hard to know what is right to do.

N said...

I used to go out with a heroin junkie when I was 19 and one night he decided to shoot up in front of me. That moment changed my life and how I feel about hard drugs, it absolutely broke my heart. Until this day I still feel chills when I hear the word 'heroin'. I was quite surprised to see boxes for the syringes in this park in Copenhagen.

There's clinics where you can get heroin for hardcore addicts in Western Canada. Pretty scary but Vancouver is known for its drug addicts