Something to think about...

There are roughly 1400 Londoners who are currently on methadone. There are probably far more drug-addicted Londoners who are not on any such recovery program at all.

This post will deal with the roughly 1400 Londoners who are methadone patients.

Let us imagine for a moment that there are no methadone clinics in this city.  In this London there are 1400 more contributors to the black market. In this London, having 1400 more addicts on illegal drugs is viewed as somehow being morally superior to having 1400 patients on methadone.

These imaginary Londoners are addicted an of average 200 mg illegal opiate narcotic per day, which they purchase for about fifty cents a milligram.  Some work to get the money for their drugs, others lie cheat, steal and prostitute themselves - and for the most part they commit these crimes in the city, not having the courtesy to commit them elsewhere.

In this imaginary London, drug dealers earn on average $36-48 million dollars more each year than the drug dealer's in the real London.  The $7000 that those 1400 methadone patients would have spend on their daily medicine goes into the pockets of the dealers to the tune of $100 000 - $140 000 more per day. With the methadone clinics gone from the city, the savvier out-of-town dealer's know that they are 'the only option' for addicts.  More of them come to London, where legal competition is nonexistent.

The dealers take advantage of areas where the poor congregate, so the removal of the city's methadone clinics had no benefit in that regard; the addicts still congregate to these areas and they do so in greater numbers - the dealers followed.  Letters to the editor in the local paper of this imagined London speak about 'banning coffee shops' to deny the drug dealers the opportunity to 'take advantage of the downtrodden'.  Others say that this is too extreme and that places which feed the homeless should only be banned from being 'close to schools and playgrounds - think of the children'.

A vocal minority want methadone clinics back, alleging some connection between their absence and 'the increase in drug-related crime' - but they are usually rebutted with the irrefutable rock-solid logic that says 'drugs are bad therefore giving drugs to addicts is also bad and we shouldn't do it no matter the consequences'; the consequences being an increase in drug-crime.  A product of the finest minds on the local internet comment boards, this argument is viewed as irrefutable. And the city's dealers love that.

Fortunately our London - the real London - denies those drug dealers access to those millions in potential profit in by allowing methadone clinics in the city. The real London has methadone clinics that keep at least $36 million out of the coffers of criminals every year, and which do so whilst helping people recover from devastating opiate addiction. In this light, allowing more methadone clinics to be built seems like the logical thing to do.

In our London, you and I and 'the children' are less likely to be a victim of a crime than in the imagined one, where methadone clinics don't exist.  So as much as some of us might not like the sight of them, maybe we ought to appreciate having these clinics around.

Just something to think about.