IT is with great sadness and horror that I learnt of the beating to death of a drug addict by some angry residents of Sophia, South Georgetown. How can we be so cruel? What have we degenerated to?

When will we realise that an addiction is a sickness that needs treatment, not anger and hatred. The society that despises the drug addict, is the very same that makes all efforts to keep them in that condition for its use.
Very often when a task has to be performed, instead of engaging the service of a reliable and healthy person,  people look for an addict so that the same task can be performed for a quarter of the real price. This is done with the knowledge that the little money received will only be used to feed the addiction.
IN this way society is not offering the addict a chance out of their situation. Instead, all is done to keep them there because we view them as having no future and garbage collectors. When there is a drain to clean or a dead animal to remove, we say “call the Junki.”
Now because of a suspected misdemeanour a man was hogtied and beaten to death. And if the police did not later arrive his body would have been set afire.
This is morally and criminally wrong, there can be no justification for such actions. The community should have protected that person. The whole of Guyana must now carry this shame.
We can all redeem ourselves by being more tolerant and by showing love and compassion if we are to change our society. Remember the story of “Beauty and the Beast”, in which a young girl changed a heinous beast by just offering love. Then there was happiness in the whole castle.