Pubdate: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2000 The Province Contact: 200 Granville Street, Ste. #1, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N3 Canada Fax: (604) 605-2323 Website: http://www.vancouverprovince.com/ Author: Kathy Tait FED'S ADVICE ON ADDICTS Stay focused on harm reduction over drugs, develop consensus and co-operation and steer away from polarized positions on drugs. That's the advice from Diane Jacovella, director of Health Canada's drug strategy division, to a meeting of B.C. drug policy makers. Jacovella's comments come amid a growing political debate in Ottawa as some MPs seek to legalize street drugs while others - in the wake of the gangland-style shooting of a Montreal crime reporter - seek a new law to deal with crime gangs. Jacovella said the goals of Canada's drug policy are to prevent the use of drugs by young people, reduce drug deaths, increase access to treatment and reduce the supply of drugs and profits to criminals. "We need to move the debate to what we can actually do to reduce deaths and HIV infection rates," she said. On the world stage, she said, Canada is on side with the harm-reduction efforts of European countries and "not on the side of the U.S." where the emphasis is more on law enforcement, the success of which has had mixed reviews. Ueli Locher, a drug policy director in Switzerland, urged delegates to stay away from ideology and take a pragmatic and co-operative approach. "Facts and figures are more convincing than opinion." He said Switzerland has tackled its drug problem through prevention - education in schools and early intervention with special kids having problems that could lead to addiction - and through harm-reduction programs such as needle exchanges, injection rooms, job programs, shelters for addicts, and centres where addicts can go for coffee and make contact with the health system. He said Swiss voters realize that they will have to pay for addiction one way or another and that "it's more intelligent to get people into treatment." He said drugs are illegal and Switzerland fights traffickers. While an overall evaluation of the effectiveness of Swiss harm-reduction policies has not been done, Locher said they have not increased hard-drug use and there's a slight decrease in heroin addicts. The numbers of hard-drug users in treatment has doubled, HIV infection rates are lower and drug deaths have been cut in half from a peak of 419 in 1992 to 181 last year. "Among those on prescription heroin (only five per cent of Swiss addicts) there's been a 70-per-cent decrease in criminal activities over two years." There was some initial public-business resistance to harm reduction, but it was reduced when addicts were off the street. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck