Shooting Up in Athens

by Ethan Light*
Pierson College, Yale 2009

I’d like to think of myself as a relatively worldly individual. I will admit I am pathetically mono- linguistic (and still working on English), have one passport, and have lived outside of the United States only once - and very briefly. Regardless, I have spent a good amount of time traveling, have family living in four countries, read the international dailies, and am currently looking for work in Asia. I’d like to think that this global view in some ways contributes to an international understanding and a thick skin when it comes to things that fall out of my realm of experience. This past summer, however, I saw something which absolutely thrust me out of my comfort zone.



I was travelling on the cheap and staying in hostels, generally not located in the most upscale neighborhoods, so I wasn’t expecting my small hotel in Omonia Square, Athens to be the Mandarin Oriental. But what I was unaware of until arriving is that Omonia has a much more popular name for native Athenians: Heroin Square. I first noticed the clumps of prostitutes encircling the group of teenagers and young adults in the middle of the small park. Their numbers were only dwarfed in comparison to the population with needles in their bodies. In the early evening, in the middle of a busy public square, under city lights, scores of people were shooting heroin into feet, hands and arms. I counted to 45 before giving up and paying attention to the ground to make sure I didn’t step on rouge hypodermics.

Perhaps the only thing more shocking were the police, stationed no more than two blocks in every direction, aware of the flood of synthetic opiates down the street but entirely uninterested in doing anything about it. I assume their purview extends only so far as to ensure no junkies wander into the nicer parts of town.

Coming face- to- face with passed out heroin addicts, their bodies sprawled so that their heads rolled into the middle of the street, made me reconsider my position on victimless crime. Before the summer I would unflinchingly support the legalization not only of marijuana but of all drugs. Similarly, prostitution was merely a contractual obligation between two adults in which the government had no business injecting moralizing puritanical legislation.

But as I stood on the street surrounded by a mix of Somali immigrants and junkies looking for a fix, I wondered if the Greek government had some obligation to that 17-year- old with a needle in his arm; an obligation to keep him from throwing away his future. At the very least it is a good investment: by keeping that kid off of heroin Greece has one more productive worker and one less social pariah and fiscal drag.

Wouldn’t those nonchalant police officers better spend their time attempting to drag those addicts out of brutal heroin addiction, rather than allowing the situation to escalate? At the very least, minors deemed too young to vote or serve in the army should not be given the opportunity to be hooked on opiates. However, were police to target minors (or anyone for that matter) the tacit agreement between Athens’ finest and its “victimless” criminals would be violated.

I’ll let you know if I end up reconciling a disagreement with a moralizing government and the importance of a state to protect it’s people- even from themselves.
And here is the rest of it.

*A pseudo-name has been used to protect the identity of this author.