Pubdate: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 Times Colonist Contact: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) VICTORIA NEEDS A LITTLE INSITE Harper's Hardline Approach To Drugs Threatens To Kill Safe-Injection Site In Vancouver Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe is still talking bravely about a safe-injection site for the region's addicts, but even optimists must be losing hope. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government's co-operation would be necessary, isn't at all keen about the idea, and might even put Vancouver's pioneering facility, Insite, out of business. Ottawa has been funding Insite since September 2003 as a three-year pilot project. It's the first government-sanctioned shooting gallery in North America, and has detractors both in Canada and especially in the U.S., where drug-enforcement authorities see it as a threat to the American way of life. Harper stated during the last election campaign where he stands: "We as a government will not use taxpayers' money to fund drug use. That is not the strategy we will pursue." So when the federal funding for Insite runs out in September, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan doesn't expect it to be renewed. But he says he'll be asking the federal government at least to avoid putting any barriers in the way of keeping Insite open or any other innovations the province and municipal governments might come up with to deal with drug addiction. That would mean continuing Ottawa's policy of exempting patrons and operators of the Vancouver safe-injection site from prosecution under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, since addicts are using illegal drugs to shoot up. This is a pretty black-and-white issue. Those who oppose safe-injection sites consider people who use illegal drugs criminals; those who support them consider addiction a health issue and supervised clinics for addicts a way to prevent disease and save lives. At one extreme, we have Real Women, which makes the charge that Health Canada is planning methodically to approve injection sites across the country for a "startling and sordid" reason -- to make legal all mind-altering drugs by "normalizing" their use. The organization says the facilities increase heroin use and the market for it, attract drug pushers, reward international criminal drug cartels -- including Osama bin Laden's -- by using their illicit substances, and cause an increase in crime by addicts. It argues, instead, for forcing addicts into detoxification and rehabilitation programs, with jail terms for those who refuse. At the other extreme is Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle police chief, who's on a speaking tour of western Canada to tell legislators, judges, cops -- anyone who'll listen -- that there's a hunger in our society for mood- and mind-altering drugs that won't go away, and governments shouldn't be able to tell us what we can put into our bodies. Regulation and control of drug use, through such things as safe-injection sites, Stamper says, is preferable to the so-called War on Drugs that has been unable to stop an increase in drug availability and use, discriminates against visible minorities and the poor, encourages criminal activity and risks police corruption. Vancouver's Insite has drawn the same conflicting reaction internationally. The UN's International Narcotics Control Board called it "a grave concern" that violates international drug conventions requiring that controlled substances be used only for medical or scientific reasons. But the European Union's Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that Insite and other safe-injection sites -- the first opened in Berne in 1986 -- attract long-term and "hard to reach" addicts, decrease exposure to infectious diseases, decrease risk-taking, provide immediate help in case of overdose and reduce overdoses in the community. And, the centre reported, so long as municipal authorities and police are consulted, they do all this without increasing public disorder. Medical journals -- Canadian, American and British -- have published research showing Insite has reduced in-public injections and related litter in the Downtown Eastside, has attracted users most at risk of HIV infection and overdose, and has reduced needle-sharing among high-risk users. The Canadian Medical Association Journal reported in September 2004, a year after the Vancouver facility opened, that there had been no increase in the number of drug dealers in the vicinity. It said it will take "several years" to evaluate Insight's overall health impacts, but its experience should be valuable for other urban areas where public drug use is a problem -- like Victoria. There were 197 overdoses among 116 clients at Insite between September 2004 and August 2005 -- any of which might have been fatal elsewhere. During that period about four clients were referred to addiction treatment each day and nearly two a week to methadone treatment. Others, who might otherwise not seek medical care, were referred to St. Paul's Hospital and community health services. Obviously, real people with real problems are being helped, whether or not they kick the habit for good. The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority calculates that if it costs $150,000 to treat an HIV patient over a lifetime, preventing 10 people from contracting HIV means Insite pays for itself. Harper's unyielding legal stand must not be allowed to jeopardize what Lowe is convinced is a promising medical solution to an urban social problem across Canada. Victoria could use a little Insite, too. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman