Aging Addicts Find Refuge in Dutch Care Facility
from Der Spiegel:
The junkies from the 1970s are getting older and many still haven't kicked the habit. An experimental home in the Netherlands provides them a safe place to live -- and do drugs. Many will likely stay there for the rest of their lives.
With The Hague is still in darkness, at 5:30 in the morning, the night has ended in Woodstock. The first residents of the home walk into the lobby, past the abandoned pool table and the jukebox: a limping man with an emaciated, birdlike face; a man whose face is all but hidden underneath his hooded sweatshirt; a woman with puffy eyes, wearing a bathrobe. Driven by an invisible force, they make their way up the wheelchair ramp toward a door labeled "Medicatie," or Drug Dispensary. It opens at 6 a.m.
By the time Gerrit, the night nurse, opens the door, the small group has grown into a good-sized, yet silent, cluster. Soon they are greedily swallowing their rations, sometimes as many as 15 pills at a time. Gerrit hands out the substitute drug methadone and various sedatives, as well as those medications the elderly typically need: pills for high blood sugar, heart problems and hypertension.
Everyone in the hostel also takes illegal drugs. "But they have to get the drugs themselves. We just tolerate their use," explains the night nurse. He says he has known some of the junkies since he was young. "We used to go to all the same discos and bars. There have been some surprising reunions here," he says. He points to the list of residents next to the reception desk: 36 names, complete with room numbers and birth dates. Most were born in the late 1950s. The youngest resident, the woman in the bathrobe, was born in 1967. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,826075,00.html