Pubdate: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Page: A12 Copyright: 2009 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: Kim Pemberton, Vancouver Sun Cited: Canadian HIV Trials Network http://www.hivnet.ubc.ca/ Referenced: Achievement Awards http://www.reformconference.org/achievement-awards.php Referenced: International Drug Policy Reform Conference http://www.reformconference.org/ Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Four+Pillars Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Insite (Insite) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/North+American+Opiate+Medication+Initiative Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?214 (Drug Policy Alliance) PAIR TO BE HONOURED FOR WORK ON DRUG TREATMENTS Donald Macpherson, Dr. Martin Schechter Will Receive Awards Friday at Conference in New Mexico Donald MacPherson was behind the scenes for many years, helping steer Vancouver's Four Pillars Drug Strategy, but Friday he takes centre stage when he receives an award for his efforts at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Albuquerque, N.M. MacPherson work for 12 years as the city's drug policy coordinator until stepping down last month. He developed and implemented Vancouver's drug policy strategy starting in 2000, with the pillars of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement. "Vancouver is on the cutting edge of drug policy reforms. Donald is being recognized for playing a pivotal role in terms of Vancouver's leadership worldwide," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a U.S.-based organization that advocates for alternatives to that country's "War on Drugs" campaign. Nadelmann says Vancouver's "European common sensibility thinking" approach addresses drug use and addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal matter. He credited MacPherson for helping create the city's prescribed heroin maintenance treatment program and for North America's first and only supervised injection site, which opened in 2003. Under MacPherson's leadership, Vancouver also launched a program in 2005 comparing the effectiveness of prescribed heroin and methadone maintenance treatments, and worked to expand addiction services throughout Vancouver. These reforms resulted in a dramatic drop in the number of overdose deaths in Vancouver and in the transmission of disease among IV drug users, Nadelmann said. MacPherson was in France and could not be reached for an interview. However, he said in a news release that people who use drugs should not be criminalized, especially those who develop addictions and/or have mental health problems. "Much of what plays out on the streets of Vancouver -- the selling, the using, the killing, the infections, the dying and the property crime -- is a direct result of the criminalization of drugs," he said. Another Vancouver resident, Dr. Martin Schechter, the national director of the Canadian HIV Trials Network, will also receive an award at the conference. Schechter will receive the Norman E. Zinberg Award for achievement in the field of medicine for his work on a unique clinical trial investigating the benefits of medication-assisted therapy for people suffering from chronic opiate addictions who have not benefited from other treatments. He was the principal investigator for the NAOMI Project (North American Opiate Medication Initiative), a three-year-long clinical trial. Schechter is a professor in the department of health care and epidemiology at the University of B.C. and the chairman of the UBC division of epidemiology and biostatistics The International Drug Policy Reform Conference will bring together nearly 1,000 leading international experts, treatment providers, researchers, policy-makers and key activists at the leading global forum on drug policy reform. In 2003, then-Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell and former mayor Philip Owen, along with Quebec Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, shared the same award MacPherson will be receiving, called the Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award for outstanding achievement in the field of drug policy. At that time, it was the first time in the history of the award that it had been given to Canadians. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake