Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 Source: Abbotsford News (CN BC) Copyright: 2010 Richard Tatomir Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/BkAJKrUD Website: http://www.abbynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1155 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n438/a12.html Author: Richard Tatomir ABBOTSFORD NEEDS NEEDLE EXCHANGE From working directly with homeless people for the past several years around Abbotsford and Mission, both as a volunteer visiting people in their tent cities or cardboard boxes and currently as a shelter worker, I am very familiar with the plight these very vulnerable members of society face. Mission has made great strides in helping homeless in our community such as the Haven in the Hollow Shelter and new Grant Street Lodge where people can live in independent suites but have access to trained mental health workers and other support staff. Abbotsford, however, with a much larger population has made little progress. A pressing issue for municipalities has been the needle exchange program, used in Europe for decades, and Vancouver, Surrey and even Chilliwack for several years, and is one of the fundamental three pillars in actually reducing drug abuse and its consequences. Needle exchange also puts addicts in contact with mental health and addiction workers that increase the chance a person seeks treatment and gets clean. What is our greatest fear about this program in Abbotsford? It's simple, flawed logic: that programs such as the needle exchange condone drug use and actually will increase its rate. This is farthest from the truth, most of the people on the street, though have different individual stories, have faced a similar lack of social support, from family members that were abusive or neglectful, living conditions throughout their life at or below the poverty line, unequal access to education and in general a stigma that views poverty and criminality as being part of someone's DNA. Wake up Abbotsford. Because of the desperate circumstances this segment of the population is in, people seeking a temporary escape from their misery will continue to happen. While we seek to solve the larger problems that have led people to drug use in the first place, why do we add the additional misery of shared needles massively increasing people's chance of contracting HIV and hepatitis? Are we so naive as to think by not giving users clean needles they will stop doing drugs? Having a needle exchange program prevents dirty needles from being on the streets or in our parks and unsuspecting children from stepping on them. Lowering disease rates in the addicted population also lowers the chance front line workers will contract the same diseases. Support needle exchange and make Abbotsford a cleaner and healthier city. Richard Tatomir - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake