The National Post has been doing a killer job on covering the Rob Ford story. They’ve even dug up a quote of his from 2005, back when he was a city councillor, where he — despite not being a doctor or in public health, and allegedly having close ties to the drug trade on both the supply and demand sides — said that harm reduction doesn’t work:
“You’re not helping them, you’re enabling them,” Mr. Ford said. “They’re going to smoke that crack whether you give them those crack pipes or not. They’re going to shoot that heroin whether you give them clean needles or not. If people want a change, it has to come from within.”
“You have to get these people into rehabilitation and if they don’t want to go, well, then you just enforce the law. If it’s illegal, you arrest them. That’s the bottom line and if they have to dry out in jail — great,” he said.
“I know for a fact that tough love has worked and I’m talking from personal experience. If you just enable someone and give them a place to live and money, nothing changes,” Mr. Ford said.
The Post has been doing such great work on Rob Ford, despite the fact that the politics he claims to support is right up their “George W. Bush Lite” alley. It’s almost as if they’re trying to atone for something.
