Rob Ford's substance abuse problem

People love to quibble over "addiction." It's a term that suggests a medical condition with specific symptoms (for example, you start to shake if the substance is withdrawn) and specific treatments (methadone, AA meetings).

That's why I much prefer talking about drug and alcohol problems. A problem is something an outsider can determine without knowing the biochemistry, thoughts and feelings of the person in question. A problem doesn't presume to know what's going on inside a person, only how the person is doing in the world.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford has said again and again that he's not an addict--it's something he's entitled to say. It could be true. But his addiction or non-addiction is irrelevant. That's why councillors need to focus on his drug and alcohol problem--Ford undeniably has one.

Ford might not crave a drink or a fix. Ford might use only occasionally. But if drugs or alcohol (or drugs and alcohol, as seems to be the case) harms his work and personal relationships, it's a problem. It may not be a problem for Ford himself--I've known some users who have had a great time drunk or high--but it is is for the people around him who have to respond to his doped up behaviour. Those who are affected decide if there's a problem, not the user.

It's a problem if someone's missing time at work. It's a problem if it hurts performance. It's a problem if someone become belligerent and abusive. It's a problem if the lies needed to continue using drugs and alcohol create headaches and heartaches for the people around the user. Falling asleep on the job, spending chunks of the workday meeting up with  an alleged drug dealer friend, showing up at public events drunk--all problems, regardless of whether Rob Ford is an addict or alcoholic or not.

The salacious drama of the crack video--the video! the video! the video!--has distracted people from the central issue. Yes, it's shocking that the mayor of Toronto has smoked crack, that he was in such a drunken stupor that his memories of the experience are vague. I'm sure the video, if we ever get to see it, will be both hilarious and troubling.

But I'm more interested in the problems created by what Rob Ford did in that seedy room. Where should he have been? Conducting city business? Spending time with his kids? How did he get home afterwards? What actions did he take, if any, to obtain and/or destroy the video or punish its owners? How much trouble has six months of his lying about the video caused for his friends, family, co-workers and the citizens of Toronto? How much trust has been destroyed?

It doesn't really matter if it was crack or meth or pot or tobacco in Rob Ford's pipe if troublesome things came of his smoking it.

Ford's opponents like to throw everything they don't like about Ford into a big bag, shake it and offer it up as evidence toward removing him from office. That includes his policies (the man ripped up bike lanes!), his sleazy populist tactics, his slovenly appearance, his crassness, his violation of council rules, his negative attitudes toward LGBT people and other minorities, as well as his substance abuse problem. For these opponents, the crack video is just another embarrassing, frustrating thing, like the "subways, subways, subways" mantra.

This "He's awful and needs to go" generalization confuses the issue. It distracts as much as Rob Ford's own "I am not an addict" shtick.

No matter what you think about the direction Rob Ford has taken the city in, his competence in doing so or his personal style, these are things for voters to decide. We are allowed to vote for incompetent people, even addicts, for that matter. But it is clear from all kinds of evidence, not just the video and the expansive police files, that the man has a substance abuse problem that needs to be addressed. And it needs to be addressed by the people around him who are most affected. His family, his staff and, on behalf of the citizens of Toronto, his fellow councillors.

Toronto councillors can't force Rob Ford into treatment, but they can refuse to stop cleaning up his mess.

That didn't take long

Called it. Now it's serious.

If we want Rob Ford to deal with the crack cocaine allegations, the place to start asking questions is not City Hall, but the high school where he coaches football

If Toronto had a normal mayor, we might be able to write a script of what will happen now that Gawker and the Toronto Star have reported seeing a video of someone who looks like Rob Ford smoking something that looks like crack cocaine.

If the allegations are false, Ford would offer evidence—or at least an argument—why what the reporters thought they saw isn’t what they saw; he’d quickly correct these incorrect perceptions. If the allegations are true, Hollywood has prepared us to expect a remorseful resignation and a stint in rehab.

But Toronto does not have a normal mayor and, based on past experience, it seems entirely possible that Rob Ford’s simple “ridiculous” dismissal  (What’s ridiculous? The allegations? His crack use? That people care? The fundraising campaign to buy the video? The fact that, accused of calling Liberal leader Justin Trudeau a "fag," he was going to take refuge in a ceremony commemorating the International Day Against Homophobia?) might be his last word on the subject. His critics at Toronto City Council has not yet found the wherewithal to leverage Ford’s private shenanigans in the political sphere—even Rob Ford’s legal/judicial shenanigans have done little to erode his voter base. There’s no reason to think his opponents—and even his more nervous supporters—will be more capable this time.

But what about Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coaches football? Just because city councillors should be expected to work with a colleague who might have a substance abuse problem doesn’t mean the parents of high school students should tolerate their kids being exposed to such a controversial figure. Adults working with minors should always be held to a higher standard.

And so I predict that Don Bosco is where Rob Ford’s epically bizarre mayoral rule might start to unravel. Can the high school principal leave these allegations uninvestigated—that its football coach might be using illegal drugs and, while doing so, might be belittling the team’s players? I don’t think so. Even if city council has learned to work around Rob Ford’s erratic behaviour, a high school principal should not. While there may never be enough evidence against Rob Ford for criminal charges based on the alleged video, there might already be enough evidence to ask him to resign as football coach. No matter how great a coach he is, the toxicity of the allegations—and his failure to address them—are much too damning. Any serious educator knows exactly what has to happen next.

Is this a side note to a larger political scandal? Considering how much time Ford spends on the football field—and considering the footballers he surrounds himself with at City Hall—the loss of his position as football coach might be a far bigger reality check than anything that could happen to him in his role of mayor.

If Toronto wants Ford to seriously deal with the allegations in the Gawker and Toronto Star stories, the issue will have to be raised in the principal’s office, not the council chambers.

Built Ford Tough

Progressive Torontonians are freaking out about the election of Rob Ford as mayor, not just because they're worried about what he'll do to the city. They're also disturbed by how many of their fellow citizens voted for a man with track record of bigoted speech about gay and lesbian people and Canadian newcomers--or just about anybody else who is not a car-driving, home-owning middle-class straight married person. Is this what my neighbours/people in the 'burbs think of me? they wonder.

It's true that these attitudes are part of the Ford package. But I think other less worrisome (though no less desirable) factors played a part in Ford's election.

The biggest factor is star power. Torontonians love to vote for a strong, sharply defined character. Exhibit A, Mel Lastman. Rob Ford ran as himself, a classic love-em-or-hate-em character, right out of The Family Guy. Even David Miller, with his stylish hair and upright appearance, had a Soccer Dad/Dudley Doright persona that was immediately understandable on an emotional level. Ford's main rival, George Smitherman, had been a "character" in the past, but ran a campaign where he tried to quash his established persona of Furious George and failed to adopt a new persona along the lines of "gay dad." Voters wondered who Smitherman was and, ergo, if he was hiding something. Torontonians will vote for a big, authentic personality, no matter what policy it's offering them.

As well, David Miller's mishandling of the 2009 garbage strike meant that even moderate voters were keen to punish anyone who seemed gutless in seeking efficiency and, especially, seeking efficiency from the unions. They wanted guts. Pantalone was too closely associated Miller--and too pro-labour--to answer this need. Smitherman, bizarrely, considering his past track record, wasn't able to position himself as someone who could be a tough bargainer. The one thing you know about a loose cannon like Ford is that he won't back down (even when he should). Will it he be effective? I doubt it. But voters wanted someone who acknowledges the problem and will try to solve it.

For better or, more precisely, for worse, it's shallow perceptions, not what runs underneath them that will win or lose you an election in this city. Ford ran a great one-note campaign that capitalized on voter frustration: stop the gravy train, stop the gravy train, stop the gravy train. Ford's specifics--tearing up the streetcar lines or defunding Pride celebrations--were not, I think, a big part of why people voted for him.

Fingers crossed.