Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jun 2008
Source: Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK)
Copyright: 2008 Brunswick News Inc.
Contact: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/onsite.php?page=contact
Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2878
Author: Andrew McGilligan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/insite (Insite)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

HARM-REDUCTION SITES HAVE MET GOALS: ETHICS OFFICIAL

SAINT JOHN - For Dr. Tim Christie, director of ethics services for 
the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation, the debate between harm 
reduction and law enforcement policies is a simple one - it all comes 
down to goals.

Christie says harm-reduction policies have been able to meet the 
goals they set while the same cannot be said for law enforcement.

He cites Insite, the country's first safe injection site for drug 
addicts, as an example. One of the main goals of Insite, a pilot 
program in Vancouver, is to prevent overdose deaths, something that 
was happening far too often in the B.C. city's east end before the 
pilot program began.

"(Insite) had over 600 overdose events in the site and no one has 
died," Christie said.

"On the other hand, law enforcement has not been able to achieve the 
goals it set for itself. They want to interrupt the supply of drugs - 
they haven't been able to make a dent. They say want to stop drugs at 
the source and they haven't made a dent."

The current federal drug strategy is weighted heavily in favour of 
law enforcement. A paper published in the HIV/AIDS Policy Law Review 
in 2006 found that approximately three-quarters of the funding in the 
strategy is spent on law enforcement while three per cent goes toward 
harm reduction.

Christie said there is a price Canadians pay for this distribution of 
resources in the national drug strategy.

"There's a cost to failing on the enforcement side and not investing 
on the other side, which is proven to work," he said.

Christie said the social costs for an untreated opiate addict are 
approximately $45,000 a year. He said that is much more than the cost 
of treatment.

The cost for a course of treatment for someone with hepatitis C is 
between $10,000 to $30,000, while the lifetime cost of treating 
someone with HIV is approximately $240,000.

"Treatment is a lot cheaper and you'll have better outcomes," he said.

So while the facts support harm reduction and treatment methods over 
law enforcement programs, Christie said the next step is to have an 
ethical conversation on the subject.

"What we need to have is the hard ethical conversation about what do 
we value as a society and what values should public health policies 
be based on."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom