Where is the junkie rights movement?

I've just finished watching the movie "Milk" and I'm wondering where the junkie rights movement is. Addicts don't choose to be addicts. They are just people who were sad, bored or ignorant at one point in their lives, made a really bad decision and found themselves imprisoned in an addiction from which they find it impossible to escape. Homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, but addiction is. There's no way you can imagine a crowd marching down the street singing "Say it loud, I'm a junkie and I'm proud." Heroin and crack are illegal for starters, but I suspect it's not the addiction that is the source of shame. Prohibition is compelling these people to go against their moral values and break social taboos by stealing and prostituting every day of their lives. How could they not feel shame? How would you feel if you had to steal or sell your body every day of your life to fend off great physical or emotional pain? Addicts are living that life every day. No wonder they seek escape in their next fix. If I were living like that every minute of sobriety would gnaw away at my conscience.

We now know that they don't have to live this life of shame. Prescribing heroin (and/or cocaine) can break the cycle of chaos and allow them to reflect on their lives with the knowledge that they need not go back to stealing and/or prostituting themselves. But yet we hesitate to embrace this new initiative. In the Daily Mail the Taxpayers Alliance states:

"Many taxpayers will have a massive problem paying for addicts’ heroin, particularly at a time when the NHS is unable to provide them with doctor’s appointments or life-saving cancer drugs."

But the Taxpayer's Alliance fails to recognise that in the status quo everyone continues to unwittingly play the "victims of crime" lottery.

Release the balls please.

And the first ball out is BURGLARY! Yes, Janet from Wokingham, you'll go home to find your new flatscreen TV, your Wii, and all your heirloom jewellery gone and your house in a bit of a state. There hasn't been a day when Burglary hasn't been drawn, and 80% of domestic burglaries are motivated by drug use. Hard luck Janet.

Next ball is MUGGING! Angela from Poole, it appears your husband has been stabbed by a drug addict because he wouldn't give up his watch and wallet. Ooh, it says here he's in intensive care so yes Angela, you are excused.

And the third ball out is PROSTITUTION! You won't like this Dave from Milton Keynes. That new boyfriend your 14 year old daughter mentioned just happens to be a drug addict, has your daughter hooked on drugs and she won't be home tonight because she's working the streets in your wife's favourite minidress to fund their addiction. Woah, hard luck Dave...

...you get the idea...

So commiserations to our losers and we'll see you in about 5 minutes time when we start all over again. We're here 24/7 year after year until the Daily Mail , the Taxpayer's Alliance and the rest of the country's prejudiced individuals remove their blinkers and realise what's really going on.

So, back to my point. The addicts may be too ashamed to fight for their own rights so we should fight for them. And frankly, I think we have a right to live in neighbourhoods with vastly reduced levels of burglary, mugging and prostitution do we not? Also, a (few years old now) leaked Downing Street strategy unit report found a yearly £16bn cost of crime committed by addicts to fund drug use. We could really be doing with that money right now.

Addicts' rights to live a life free of shame allow the rest of us to live a life free of fear. Please support the prescription of hard drugs whenever and wherever you can.

Er, we could do with that cocaine over here thanks.

So the British navy have just intercepted a fishing vessel carrying £240m worth of cocaine and have handed the stash over to the US http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8277483.stm

Woops.

An excerpt from Drug Crazy by Mike Gray:

"Crack cocaine, of course, is an unparalleled menace, but the prohibitionists hardly have clean hands on this issue. Crack is a creation of the black market. The only reason for its existence is economic. It’s cheap. Unfortunately you get what you pay for. The high lasts only seconds before the bottom drops out, but low cost makes it available to the blue-collar market. There are few crack addicts on Wall Street. The traders prefer the smoother ride of the pure powder, and they can afford it. If prescription cocaine were available to serious addicts, there is every likelihood the demand for crack would disintegrate. In Liverpool, where John Marks gave addicts cocaine by prescription, nobody asked for crack."

This 5.5 tonnes of uncut cocaine could have come in very handy in the effort to protect our communities from crime. Examination of the results of the heroin prescription trials much publicised in the press earlier this month, shows that three quarters of the heroin addicts included in these trials were also crack addicts.

"those in the heroin group were committing a total of 1731 crimes in the 30 days prior to entering RIOTT treatment and after 6 months, this fell to 547 crimes"

How much further would this figure have fallen if the crack addicts had been prescribed cocaine alongside their heroin? The next course of action is not to expand the heroin prescription trial, but to accept the overwhelming international evidence of its benefits and roll out heroin prescription to every community that needs it. Scientific attention should now be turning to cocaine in an attempt to ascertain whether cocaine prescription can keep crack addicts out of trouble too.