The Addicts Won't Leave....

It's true.

Even if the city stopped building methadone clinics entirely, it won't make them leave.  It might even make things worse for us all.

You see, when a person becomes addicted to opiates they do not often have the forethought to ponder whether or not they will have access to a methadone clinic when the times comes for them to sober up. That is simply not a factor in their decision making process.  Point being: methadone clinics do not 'create' addicts.
That being the case, one can see how these clinics might be of benefit or how our community would suffer if methadone clinics were banned completely from the city.
 
When they [methadone clinics] are made accessible to the members of the community who are trying to get better, those Londoners are less likely to use illegal opiates - illegal opiates are usually what people starting methadone are addicted to.  This is good for those Londoners in recovery, but it is also bad for the drug dealers who make their living selling illegal drugs - and that is a win-win.

 This is why the 'drug dealers prey on them' argument is a poor one. Drug dealers hate methadone clinics; as far as they are concerned the clinics are stealing customers. Saying that you don't want to build a clinic  because you want to protect people from the dealers is a ludicrous idea; if addicts can't get methadone they will go to the dealers - the addicts won't just quit because they can't find a clinic.  Nor will people refrain from starting to abuse opiates because there are less clinics.

I won't get into the crime and expense associated with illegal drugs. . . 

Alas, some people seem to think that the community would come to benefit from banning these clinics and preventing more of them being built, but this is just not so. Sure the visibility of addicts in particular areas would decrease, but the addicts and dealers would just spread out and go elsewhere.  People tend to forget that keeping that sort of activity confined to certain areas is a benefit in it's own right.

I also hear the arguments about one methadone clinics being close to a school and that is somehow a bad influence for the children to see.  To the contrary I think it might be a good thing, the children need to be able to see what happens when they abuse drugs - having that clinic next to a school allows teachers to point and say "that is what will happen to you if you don't put down that damn reefer..."

And those kids at that school aren't all innocent.  If any of you have kids who attend that school, ask them about the drug dealers who attend it.  Ask them what drugs can be bought at school; you might find yourself surprised.

Heck, some of you already know from experience what can be purchased in some of our schools. 

Some of you finding yourself here might have even got your addiction started in high school - would you not have benefited from having such a visible example of what awaited you so near?  I think it might.  For kids already hooked on the hard dope, it could possibly be used a a positive example: 'See kid, you can get off those percocets'. Sadly nowadays any teacher who used the addicts across the street as an example might find themselves reprimanded by the PC Police.

In conclusion, it is disingenuous to argue that the addicts would benefit if the means to recovery were made more difficult to access. The excuse that we must refrain from building clinics to protect the addicts from dealers is a poor one and does not hold up to scrutiny.  Methadone clinics and the lines might be unsightly, but the eyesore is a price we pay for the peace of mind that comes with knowing that at least those people are getting the help they need. With every new methadone patient, the dealers lose a customer the rest of us benefit; that methadone patient will be in a better position to be a contributing member of the community than when he/she was on illegal opiates and they are much less likely to commit crime.  This is a good thing.