Pubdate: Wed, 06 Feb 2008
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Joey Thompson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

DRUG CONFERENCE HIGH ON HARM REDUCTION

Pastor Wonders Why She Was Excluded From UN Forum

For a region thick with addicts and thin on rehab beds, it's logical 
to assume a global forum on solving the world's drug woes would want 
to encourage talks on various recovery initiatives.

At least Gloria Kieler, a faith-based, go-clean worker in Vancouver's 
Downtown Eastside for the past 16 years, thought so.

The East Hastings storefront pastor expected treatment and 
rehabilitation to be the operative buzz-words when delegates from 70 
non-governmental groups (NGOs) gathered this week for the UN-stamped 
forum in Vancouver that's supposedly rooting for a drug-free world.

Not only were rehab and recovery missing from the agenda, she was 
too, as was Urban Core, a committee of 40 DTES groups who work in the 
trenches daily to help drug addicts and needles users get clean.

In fact, few who have publicly criticized harm-reduction programs 
that ignore the need for treatment options were told of the 
international event, much less invited to discuss why they believe 
governments should adequately fund detox, stabilization and treatment 
facilities before investing in harm-reduction schemes -- needle 
exchanges, crack pipe give-aways, injection sites, that sort of thing.

Yet forum organizers from the University of Victoria's Centre for 
Addictions Research didn't fail to add the Vancouver Area Network of 
Drug Users to their guest list as well as harm-reduction cheerleaders 
Philip Owen and Larry Campbell.

It's just a coincidence that the centre is also a known 
harm-reduction advocate, isn't it? And that its website is long on 
reducing the harms associated with drug use but short on measures 
aimed at ending it?

And that its freshest research initiative claims Victoria -- which 
has almost no recovery beds -- has an urgent need for a shooting 
gallery, er, supervised-consumption site.

While sister conferences unfolding in other North American cities 
appear open-minded, research centre folks boast of being the only 
ones to invite supporters of harm-reduction and drug-policy reform.

All the more reason to ensure proponents of rehabilitation first, 
harm-reduction second, are among them to generate open, frank discussion.

"If VANDU can suddenly speak for harm reduction internationally, why 
can't people like myself and the Urban Core speak on treatment 
recovery internationally?" Kieler e-mailed centre director Dan Reist.

Local matters, or the need for services, is not what this forum is 
about, he replied. It's simply to gather ideas and collect 
information related to international policy.

"The focus is on how NGOs can better engage with governments and UN agencies."

Fair enough, but the two-day talk-fest's specified goal -- mapped out 
as a United Nations review of how to improve international 
drug-control efforts -- was to solve the world's drug problems, not 
solve the health issues related to them.

The Vancouver forum looks more like a rah-rah session for 
harm-reduction buffs, and less like a world-class symposium aimed at 
reviewing the UN's 1998 commitment to work towards a "drug-free world."

My prediction: Drug abuse in the Downtown Eastside will continue to 
thrive, perhaps even grow, as long as the harm-reduction folk who 
tout maintenance, rather than abstinence, control B.C.'s 
billion-dollar addiction services industry.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom