Imagine for a moment that you are one of the many heroin addicts in Rochester; the only thing that is ever on your mind is how to get your next dose. You meet with your dealer, and you had a good week. Maybe you found a lot of money or however you pay for your addiction went really well, so you buy more than usual, and head back to wherever you call home to inject yourself.
Then a thought crosses your mind: there's a new clinic where heroin addicts can inject under the supervision of doctors so you head there instead. You check in let the doctor know you're here then you sit down and inject the drug. Turns out this was a smart decision because you overdosed, and had the doctor not been there you would've died. Thank God for that clinic because now you have a second chance.
Now imagine again that you are this addict, only the clinic does not exist because the politicians were afraid that it would encourage drug use and that people would never break their addiction. Maybe you have friends who would've kept an eye on you, but what would they have done? It's not like they could take you to the hospital, otherwise you all would've ended up in jail. You would've died and your story would be over.
You would never have a chance to improve your life, you never would be able to break your addiction, the drug would've won.
Unfortunately this story is far too common in Rochester NY as the police are seeing more heroin overdoses than they ever have. Rochester is in the middle of an epidemic with seemingly no solution in sight, except there is. Politicians are debating such a clinic as the one described, where heroin addicts can inject their drug under the supervision of doctors and without fear of police persecution.
Now many of these politicians fear that such a policy is too permissive, that creating this space will only encourage drug users to continue using drugs, and that it goes against their goals of ending drug addictions. This may very well be true. This may lengthen the fight against heroin, and this may prevent some people from getting the help that they need, but these are all conjectures. Possibilities at best.
What is an undeniable fact is that dying will definitely prevent you from breaking your addiction (or it will break it immediately depending on how you look at it). Dying will also definitely prevent you from living a long and fulfilling life, or contributing to society. Dying will definitely prevent you from ever improving your situation.
It is apparent that people have, are, and will continue to purchase and use lethal amounts of heroin regardless of the fear of police persecution or the presence of a doctor, so I personally don't understand why there is even a debate.
The arguments being made by the politicians imply that they would rather have the addicts die than stay addicted. They seem to believe that a dead body is better than an addict, otherwise they would be doing anything they could to save the lives of these addicts even if it perpetuated their addiction.
This mentality sounds frighteningly similar to the ideas held by those who run homosexual conversion camps, the result of which is, more often than not, death by suicide. The mentality of these camps are that it is better that they are dead than if they continued to live their life as homosexuals.
These politicians seem to believe that it is better that they are dead than they continue their lives as addicts. Well, I could not disagree more. Quantity of human life outweighs quality of human life every single time. I would rather have every single American addicted to heroin, but have no one else die from this drug than have no addicts because everyone who is addicted or gets addicted dies.
This is not a debate of legality, of if heroin is dangerous, or if heroin is bad and should be fought. This is a debate of human life. If we should do everything in our power to save human lives or if we shouldn't. And frankly, where there is life there is hope, and this clinic will save lives.
The opinions are based off of a report from NBC New York.
