Pubdate: Sat, 08 Oct 2011 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2011 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Melanie Moore VANCOUVER NEEDS INSITE As a longtime resident of both Vancouver and Ottawa, and as someone who has worked in the "small" neighbourhood known as the Downtown Eastside (DTES), I feel compelled to respond to Dan Gardner's article. While it may be geographically small, it is a densely populated area. And, by all accounts, Vancouver is home to between 6,000 and 14,000 intravenous drug users - a third of those people live on the Downtown Eastside. I was not surprised by Mayor Jim Watson's statements, though I do find them somewhat ignorant. However unsafe Watson may feel in the DTES, I do not think he has any idea of what the area was like before Insite. Gardner is right: the problems in the area were present long before its inception. Having seen the marked, drastic changes Insite has made to the community, I am a supporter. On the surface, there are fewer people shooting up outside, and fewer dirty needles littering the ground. In research, I see that overdoses and new HIV/Hepatitis C cases have decreased. But I've also seen something very interesting developing on the DTES since the inception of Insite: a sense of community. By attacking the root problem of disparity on the DTES (that of unsafe drug use), the area is more inclined to get clean. It has become safer: businesses are moving into the area, many of them, like Save-On-Meats, are socially minded. Addicts, who may feel less stigmatized, seem more inclined to take advantages of other services in the area such as UBC's Learning Exchange. Insite is obviously needed in Vancouver - I am thankful for the Supreme Court's decision. However, based on numbers alone, Insite is not needed in Ottawa. We simply do not have an area that resembles the DTES in the slightest, and our medical resources are stretched as it is. Instead, community organizations that work with addicts should be providing clean needles free of charge. Providing access to clean needles should not be seen as a matter of encouraging drug use, but rather a matter of preventing people from contracting HIV and other diseases. While not everyone will have their lives affected by drug abuse, epidemics have the power to affect us all. Melanie Moore, Ottawa - --- MAP posted-by: Matt