Pubdate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002
Source: Langley Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 BC Newspaper Group and New Media Development
Contact:  http://www.langleytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1230
Author: Natasha Jones

'HARM REDUCTION' RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERN MP WHITE

A parliamentary committee's endorsement of safe injection sites for drug 
addicts handcuffs police, places addicts above the law and aggravates 
addiction to illicit drugs, says Randy White, the Canadian Alliance MP for 
Langley-Abbotsford.

Ironically, it was White who established the all-party Special 
Parliamentary Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, which released its 
report containing 40 wide-reaching recommendations on Monday.

More than half a dozen deal with the topic of "harm reduction" through the 
establishment in major cities of needle exchange programs, safe injection 
sites and heroin maintenance programs.

But White said that he has seen firsthand that harm reduction is, in 
reality, harm extension.

"Why are they promoting programs that will keep addicts on drugs, instead 
of programs that will help with detox and rehabilitation?" he asked.

Safe injection sites "will compound chemical dependency to dangerous and 
illicit drugs over a much longer period of time," White said. The committee 
recommended patterning the sites, including one in Vancouver, on those 
which White visited in Europe.

He said that the quality of drugs used is not checked, and for blocks 
around the sites there is "human carnage . . . and a substantial gathering 
of addicts and pushers in the areas where trafficking and using were 
reluctantly permitted."

He said that it makes matters worse that the committee "recommended 
changing the laws in order to further handcuff police from providing any 
level of drug enforcement."

In an interview last week with MetroValley News (reported below), White 
said that it is a matter of "whether we have the social conscience to put 
these people where they can be helped. It's not easy but accommodating 
their drug use is not helping them."

But White does like several of the committee's recommendations, 
particularly the creation of a national drug commissioner, drug-use surveys 
conducted across the country, increased funding for the Canadian Centre on 
Substance Abuse, and more study of prescription drug abuse.

As well, White welcomes recommendations to seize the property of drug 
dealers and putting the proceeds into community-based drug programs, and 
converting two prisons into drug treatment facilities for inmates.
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