It's All About Crack

Crack cocaine has been receiving a lot of press lately, but very little of the talk has helped us to understand the nature of the drug and its place in our communities. An op-ed piece in The Ottawa Citizen by  Dr. Mark Tyndall, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, probes our popular understanding of crack, which may stand in the way of helping those with addictions.

"We have been conditioned through the media and by the spread of popular misconceptions that crack is untreatable and a serious threat to our cities. That crack users are a menace to society and that criminal punishment is the only way to curb the problem. The response has been to use the criminal justice system to seek out the dealers and the users and to round them up and put them in jail. All this at the expense of any reasonable dialogue, research, or even interest in prevention, treatment or the social and mental health challenges that got people started in the first place."  -Dr. Mark Tyndall

Read the full article here