Pubdate: Fri, 28 Sep 2012
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Ian Robertson
Page: 24

NO NEEDLES FOR CONS: TOEWS

TORONTO - Canada's public safety minister ruled out syringes in
prisons Thursday - despite him and cabinet colleagues being needled
with a lawsuit demanding free handouts for locked-up drug users.

"We believe in drug-free prisons," Public Safety Minister Vic Toews
told reporters at an unrelated Toronto press conference.

"I don't see the need to have needles in prisons."

Ex-inmate Steve Simons, who says he contracted hepatitis C after
another prisoner used his injection equipment, joined four AIDS
prevention advocacy groups in a lawsuit filed this week against Toews,
Attorney General Rob Nicholson and Don Head, commissioner of the
Correctional Service of Canada.

It says Ottawa's failure to provide clean needles and syringe programs
- - similar to those in the U.K. and Iran - risks prisoners contracting
hep C and HIV, as well as endangering the public after their release.

Critics also accused officials of inmate discrimination, since
drug-users outside get access to free needles.

Government and private studies have revealed hepatitis-HIV cases 10 to
30 times higher in prisons than beyond the walls.

Simons, who was at Warkworth Institution from 1998 to 2010, says he
regularly saw prisoners sharing dirty, patched-together needles.

The lawsuit seeks a rare injunction forcing the government to provide
clean drug needles for federal inmates.

Repeating what he recently told the House of Commons, Toews said
prisoner drug-use reduces their chances of successful
rehabilitation.

The lawsuit has not been adjudged.
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MAP posted-by: Matt