Ex-drug addict Peter Ferentzy lauds "progressive" Vancouver

By: Matthew Burrows, Georgia Straight

A Toronto author and one-time “crackhead” with a PhD is convinced Vancouver’s ethical treatment of addicts at places like Insite mirrors how other visionaries changed society’s perception and treatment of previously oppressed groups.

“I want to tell the people of Vancouver that you’re on the cutting edge of something fantastic, because the war on drugs is going tits-up all over the place,” Peter Ferentzy told the Straight by phone. “What would happen if slavery were abolished and women’s suffrage were introduced one city at a time, after the fact, 20 years later? What would people think of a city that could say, ‘We were the first to do it?’ That’s what these people are doing for Vancouver.”

While he hails Vancouver as a “progressive, enlightened city”, Ferentzy warned that there is still some work to be done. To that end, he’s penned and self-published a rapid-fire, soul-baring 90-page book called Dealing With Addiction: Why the 20th Century Was Wrong.

On Sunday (January 22) at 6:30 p.m., noted Vancouver author Dr. Gabor Maté will introduce Ferentzy at SFU Harbour Centre’s Fletcher Challenge Theatre. The talk is called “Ending Drug Prohibition and Emancipating the Addict—The Last Frontier in a Struggle for Enlightenment”. It is part of the Portland Hotel Society’s public lecture series.

“I believe we should at least decriminalize it, starting with marijuana,” Ferentzy said of drugs in general. “Don’t treat someone like a criminal.”

With a degree of heartfelt passion based on personal contact with many addicts, Ferentzy noted that the reward of treating society’s addicted in a humane fashion is that they are more likely to stop using and enjoy a greater quality of life through the evolution of what he calls “a historical process”.

“Not that long ago, there was a consensus: spare the rod, spoil the child,” Ferentzy added. “The idea was that beating and degrading children was good for them. If your son flunked out of law school, maybe it’s because you didn’t kick his butt hard enough or often enough. That’s what people would tell you. And in the 19th century, if your wife wasn’t the best of mothers, some of your buddies might actually say, ‘That’s because you’re not doing your manly duty. She needs a slap.’ That is how, through history, the idea that people were improved and made better by degradation has been perpetuated.”

One group at a time, we’ve been shedding these fallacies, Ferentzy said, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper can’t get in the way of that progress.

“Stephen Harper isn’t going to last,” Ferentzy predicted. “Even when the Conservatives are in power, they couldn’t crush Insite. They lost…on that decision. Even Conservative-appointed judges had to say, ‘Forget it. On this point they can’t win.’ The writing is on the wall. History is playing out.”

And according to Ferentzy, Vancouver is on the right side of it.