I'm not expecting pity for heroin addicts, though I believe sympathy, at least, is more useful than revulsion. What I propose is reconsideration of prejudicial legislation that is wrong, no matter that it is based on genuine concern for the wellbeing of society.

I'm not expecting pity for heroin addicts, though I believe sympathy, at least, is more useful than revulsion. Credit:Jason South

Criminalisation of drugs such as heroin simply doesn't make sense. Whether you view drug addiction as illness, affliction, vice, symptom or destiny, my experience was that I never intended to become a heroin addict. Legality wasn't my concern when I was addicted. And my suffering was truly punishment enough, if punishment were even warranted for what is a problem more akin to mental illness than criminal malice.

I never, ever, met a junkie scared straight by the law. ''You'll be next,'' a counsellor told me, pointing out a girl headed for prison. Even that dire warning couldn't permeate the slimy combination of shame, defiance and disbelief I was wrapped in. The drug owned me: it was that simple. All I could fight for was the dignity being steadily stripped by prejudice, poverty, desperation and illness.

Illegality did not deter me from heroin for a moment, any more than it had prevented me and every well-educated, employed and emotionally stable friend of mine from experimenting with other drugs. Soon I was not only a victim, a sufferer and a patient; I was also a fugitive and criminal. Heroin is expensive, even in the 1990s when it was comparatively cheap. By the high point of addiction I needed several hundred dollars a day - every day. Black market economics grossly inflated the price. This ''prohibitive'' expense in turn pushed me first to petty pilfering, then illegal sex work on the street. There was simply no other way to finance my habit, nor could I defeat it.