Pubdate: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2007 Times Colonist Contact: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Author: Liz Evans Note: Liz Evans is a nurse and the executive director of the PHS Community Services Society, the non-profit organization that operates InSite in collaboration with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) WHAT UN REALLY SAID ABOUT SAFE INJECTION SITE As someone who has been running a relatively small non-profit society in the Downtown Eastside community for 16 years, I find it demoralizing and absurd to hear we are under attack by the United Nations. ("Canada's street drug giveaways violate global treaties: UN," March 2.) Thankfully, this is not the case. InSite, which is a critical part of a life-saving strategy to end addiction in our community, has become the target of the International Narcotics Control Board, which, through its annual report, created the false impression that InSite is responsible for contravening UN treaties, convention, and efforts to control illicit drugs. In fact, the opposite it true. The UN itself crafted a legal opinion submitted to the INCB stating that injection sites like InSite are not against international law. A decision prepared by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime recognized that it is "not the intent of a (safe injection site) to aid, abet or facilitate the possession of drugs." "On the contrary," the decision reads, "it seems clear that in such cases the intention of governments is to provide healthier conditions for IV drug abusers, thereby reducing their risk of infection with grave transmittable diseases and, at least in some cases, reaching out to them with counselling and other therapeutic options." The decision concludes that supervised injection sites "fall far from the intent of committing an offence as foreseen in the 1988 Convention." Last fall, a report commissioned by the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS praised Canada's innovation in regard to stopping an AIDS epidemic through the establishment of InSite, and even called on countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa to, at the least, start offering clean needle programs, which are proven to reduce HIV/AIDS (although also not supported by the INCB). Further, Canada's Stephen Lewis, former UN envoy on HIV/AIDS, helped release a report this month critical of the INCB's role in facilitating the global AIDS pandemic. The report noted that "none of the board's 13 members has formal training in international law, despite the importance of such credentials in interpreting treaty provisions." "Despite the centrality of drug use to HIV transmission, none of the board members has published in peer-reviewed journals on HIV/AIDS, and few list any experience of HIV treatment or prevention in their biographies," the report added. Our experience in Vancouver confirms the UN's own legal and public-health analysis regarding supervised injection. Since InSite opened in 2003, numerous research papers published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that the site has not been shown to increase the use of illegal narcotics or the number of injection drug users. Most notably, scientific data illustrates clearly that the site has actually reduced the market for controlled substances, demonstrating that people visiting InSite are twice as likely to access detox and addiction treatment, (Attendance at Supervised Injecting Facilities and Use of Detoxification Services. New England Journal of Medicine, 2006). As someone trained as a nurse in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, I have witnessed first-hand the trauma caused by addiction. Prior to InSite opening, Vancouver reached crisis proportions as a result of drugs, experiencing a rampant spread of HIV/AIDS and more than one drug overdose death every day. The "drug market" that is of concern to the INCB unfortunately already existed in Vancouver, long before the notion of harm reduction was even conceived. Canadians should rest assured our positive direction addressing drug addiction does not contravene international treaties signed to control the trade of illicit narcotics. Indeed, as confirmed by most UN authorities, Vancouver's safe injection site is proving to be part of the solution. Liz Evans is a nurse and the executive director of the PHS Community Services Society, the non-profit organization that operates InSite in collaboration with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman