Barry OGrady <> wrote in message .

> >Err… What I really want is to keep addicts alive and healthy until

> >they come to the point, with any help we can give them, that they can

> >beat the addiction.

>

>

> Why keep them alive? They made the choice to start.

>

> >That means clean and safe methods of administering the drugs without

> >criminalisation, as well as whatever it takes to get them to the point

> >of being able to give up.

>

> I like the idea of using the injecting rooms to supply bad drugs so

> that the junkies are removed from society. Doing that would send the

> message to people that if you take drugs you die.

I don’t normally respond to Barry’s diatribes… I mean posts, but can’t resist this one.

Barry’s (but not every atheists’) atheism, and _some_ Christians’ perspectives offer a diametrically opposed view of the value of the human person.

Ie. Those human beings who have an addiction to drugs (my wife and daughter meet some of them in the women’s prison at Deer Park, Melbourne several times a week) are like God, made in God’s image.

The key to understanding Barry is not via his atheism or even his belligerancy…

The key to understanding the behavior of _most_ people with an addiction to drugs is the pain/abuse that lies beneath the problem.

My daughter’s figure on (female) drug addicts in Deer Park is that 90+% of them were seriously sexually abused earlier in their lives.

Rowland Croucher March 2001.