Pubdate: Wed, 22 Oct 2008
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Margaret Kopala
Note: Margaret Kopala is an Ottawa Citizen columnist.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Insite

RCMP'S 'E' DIVISION SHOULD STAND UP FOR ITSELF

(CNS) The RCMP has its problems but nothing justifies cowering before 
special interest groups.

This time, it's "E" Division that's under fire from the Pivot Legal 
Society in a Vancouver battleground where electoral politics has 
nothing on the politics of supervised drug injection.

The Downtown Eastside's Insite is on the brink of becoming Canada's 
worst public policy disaster, yet last week the Pivot Legal Society 
called for Canada's auditor-general to investigate the RCMP's 
authority to commission research into the facility's effects on crime 
and associated issues.

The problem? First -- and despite the information being available on 
one website more than a year ago -- Pivot alleges the research was 
"secretly" commissioned. Second, though two reports were favourable 
to Insite, two were critical: One by Garth Davies, a professor at 
Simon Fraser University, and the other, the now seminal analysis 
titled A Critique of Canada's Insite Injection Site and its Parent Philosophy.

Written by Dr. Colin Mangham, a veteran of nearly 30 years in 
substance abuse prevention and a former professor of health education 
at Dalhousie University, the critique painstakingly questions studies 
suggesting Insite variously saves lives, reduces crime and disease 
transmission, or encourages treatment.

It also exposes the facility's parent philosophy that drugs are a 
lifestyle choice, a premise whose ethical contradictions can only be 
resolved by legalizing drugs or, as the city of Oslo recently 
determined, by closing its injection facility.

Mangham has confirmed to me that nothing in his paper has been 
disproved or even specifically challenged. Instead, and given its 
status as the new four-letter word, it is being dismissed as 
"ideologically" biased (though, as someone once observed, 
name-calling is the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.)

It's not the first time. Like Davies and Mangham, Health Canada's 
panel of experts summarized first the studies' positive findings then 
their methodological and design flaws.

Among many qualifications to the studies' assertions, the panel noted 
how only five per cent of drug addicts in the area were using the 
facility, and of those, only 20 per cent on a regular basis.

Its report was promptly dismissed as "political."

And when addiction treatment specialist Dr. Donald Hedges attempted 
to appear before a parliamentary committee to argue Insite is 
encouraging risky behaviour (the heroin addict needs progressively 
higher highs), he was harassed and intimidated by demonstrators.

Thug democracy rules and now it's the RCMP. Never mind the quality of 
the work, just question the right of a beleaguered institution to undertake it.

To make matters really interesting, point to derogatory remarks 
coined by a retired constable about the B.C. Centre for Excellence in 
HIV/Aids which nonetheless powerfully symbolize the deep chasm 
between the epidemiologists who dominate Insite scholarship and 
officers who must work in an area which after five years of Insite 
remains an open-air lavatory. Literally.

Let's be clear. All experts, however narrow their disciplines, have 
important contributions to make. Those with experience in the field 
are no less important than those in academe.

But there is good reason why neither should dictate public policy 
which must save lives, reconcile competing interests and address 
complex issues. Only the citizenry through its elected 
representatives can do this.

Still, if the Pivot Legal Society wishes to involve the 
auditor-general, so be it. Transparency is always a good thing.

While she's at it, why not open the books of all the service 
organizations in the Downtown Eastside. Why not reveal the names of 
board members, peer reviewers, their fees and salaries, spousal 
relationships, political connections and who, in what government 
department, motivated by what rationale, is authorizing payment for all this.

Better still, why not just concentrate on ending drug use and addiction?

As the RCMP begins its internal review into this matter, let "E" 
Division stand tall for its own area of expertise. Since access to 
drugs is the biggest challenge to recovery from addiction, no 
treatment or prevention agenda is possible without a law and order agenda.

Sweden's zero-tolerance model and mandatory treatment for addicted 
repeat offenders should also be considered.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom