Pubdate: Tue, 07 Oct 2008
Source: Concordian, The (CN QU Edu)
Copyright: 2008 The Concordian
Contact:  http://www.theconcordian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3153
Author: Janelle Jordan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Insite (Insite)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?163 (HIV/AIDS)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

INSITE ONSITE: CONCORDIA LAUNCHES 16TH ANNUAL HIV/AIDS LECTURE SERIES 
WITH HARM REDUCTION ACTIVIST.

Harm reduction activist Gillian Maxwell spoke at Concordia last 
Thursday. Maxwell, who works with several British Columbia lobby 
groups that have supported the Insite safe injection facility in it's 
fight to stay open, spoke about community involvement with harm 
reduction programs as part of the 16 annual Concordia University 
HIV/AIDS Lecture Series.

Maxwell sat down with The Concordian to talk about her work.

"The world is totally in agreement about harm reduction because of 
the spread of HIV. The World Health Organization, the Red Cross, 
different parts of the United Nations, including the Secretary 
General are all on record saying harm reduction is essential in order 
to fight HIV/AIDS, particularly with injection drug users," said Maxwell.

"Harm reduction and the goal of Insite is reducing the harm to people 
while they're doing harmful things, rather than trying to get them to 
stop. On a practical level, you can't make someone stop: the idea is 
to help them stop sharing needles and to stop them from overdosing 
and dying. The basic idea is to stop the spread of disease. Having 
people be responsible for taking care of themselves is a little step, 
but a big step to have somebody not injure themselves as much as they 
have been."

"You can look at people's addiction problems from many perspectives 
and many people look at it from a moral point of view and they think 
it's bad and wrong and they want people to stop. The truth is people 
mostly do what they need to do for themselves and when they're forced 
to do things sometimes it works, but there is a high failure rate of 
people going into addiction treatments. Drug Courts are a good 
example of that, people go to avoid jail, but the recidivism rate is 
very high."

Maxwell defines Insite's success by the numbers both in dollars saved 
to the health care system and in the declining spread of dissease. 
"It is a benefit to the individual from a community point of view and 
from an economic one. Insite was a trial for three years and a lot of 
research was conducted showing the decreased rates of HIV and 
Hepatitis-C. Over 25 peer reviewed papers were published in 
international medical journals . . . all were positive, that it works 
and it should continue."

Despite these favourable findings, Insite has been met with 
opposition: "Insite had an exemption under the federal controlled 
Drugs and Substances Act. However, during the time Insight was in its 
three-year trial, the federal government changed and the 
Conservatives came in and they just don't like it. They ignored the 
evidence and scientific results. It doesn't fit in their world of how 
things would be, and they think people who use drugs are wrong and 
bad and should be punished. It is an old way of looking at things and 
we (as a nation have) progressed."

Critics say that places like Insite are enabling drug use. "Not 
everyone agrees. There are a very small minority, whether extreme 
groups or mostly religious based groups, who say the only answer is 
abstinence. It just indicates a very limited way of thinking and that 
is not how life works. You have to engage these people: you have to 
include them, but you also have to be realistic that the majority of 
people will 'thank you' for the information."

With the Federal election next week, Maxwell said she'd like to see 
positive action from Canada's next government. "The Conservative 
government has taken us in a completely different direction. Canada 
used to be more of a leader in this field in North America with the 
first safe injection site and now we're going back into the dark ages 
on an international scale and everybody has noticed, it's an embarrassment."

"I will like them to acknowledge all the research that says this is a 
health care facility. To also give supervised injections sites their 
blessing and open the doors for other part of the country. Not 
everybody needs them, but whatever jurisdiction need them to open 
them." However, fundamentally, even to concede to Canada's Charter of 
Rights and Freedoms would be a satisfying start: "Underlying all of 
this are social justice and human rights issues. Ultimately, as long 
as we call them criminals because they decide they like cocaine or 
heroin or marijuana is totally unacceptable. I think Canada has to be 
engaged in a dialogue about our drug policies to explain why it 
doesn't work and why drug use should be on a continuum of beneficial 
use to very harmful use. I feel very strongly that our drug policies 
are similar to slavery, women's rights, gay rights - all those 
previous things in human rights history where there has been a target 
population where you say 'those people are really bad.'"

"It doesn't make sense to just let them get really sick because they 
become a big drain on the health care system: we have a duty to take 
care of them. I'll never change Stephen Harper's or Tony Clement's 
mind, but maybe some of the people around them will say there is a 
point about what we're doing."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom