Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jan 2014
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Joe Fiorito

ENCOURAGING SAFE DRUG USE SAVES LIVES, MONEY

By Encouraging Safe Drug Use, We Are Saving Lives And Saving
Money.

The safe crack-use kit comes in a small brown paper bag, roughly the
same size as the bags used by the people who rescue the songbirds that
stun themselves by flying into the windows of our tall towers.

A metaphor there, somewhere.

The contents of the kit include a tiny aluminum pan in which to
prepare the drug; the handle of the pan is made of orange plastic.

The kit also comes with a glass pipe, a single wooden chopstick with
which to clean it, two alcohol swabs, and a small black sleeve
containing five little screens.

The kits are gender specific, containing either a male or a female
condom.

Why a condom? Because sex and drugs are the horse and carriage of the
hard life: rare to find one without the other.

There is another kind of kit.

It is the safe drug-injection kit, and it is delivered in the same
sort of bag. The contents include a pair of needles. It is good to be
generous with needles because to share a needle is to risk sharing a
disease.

The safe injection kit also comes with a couple of alcohol swabs, some
cotton balls, three little tubules of sterile water, two packets of
lubricant and, yes, condoms.

About needles: I once spent several weeks spiking myself in the hip.
I'd had a knee operation, and I developed a blood clot in my leg, and
I was injecting the meds myself, as part of a trial.

I can assure you that, while I am adept at hip injection, I have no
interest in any injections, anywhere, any more; the thought of it,
even now, makes me ill.

I am deeply puzzled by addiction.

There are days when I would like to sweep all of my responsibilities
off the table and fall into sweet relief. Thing is, I know there is no
such thing as sweet relief.

Rather than reach for a phantom, I tend to wait until the feeling
passes because I am steeped in the notion that, if I give in, even for
a moment, I will lose whatever ground I have gained.

That's just me.

There are very good reasons why this city's public health department
supplies safe crack use kits, and safe drug injection kits. People
will always use drugs, and they do not always do so safely, which
means users risk getting ill, or passing their illnesses to others.

In 2010, this city distributed one million needles and 194,000 glass
crack pipes, and there were 75,000 visits to needle exchange sites,
all for a mere $2 million.

There is no estimate available for the lives saved, or the illnesses
prevented. But lifelong AIDS treatment is expensive, and what's a life
worth?

The supply of safe drug-use kits favours progressives like me - I
can't abide needless suffering - just as it should favour social
conservatives who don't like to spend any more tax money than is necessary.

Because as much as we do not like to admit it, there is simply no way
to stop some people from using drugs. How then could it possibly be
wrong to save a life and save a health-care dollar at the same time?

If we cannot stop drug use, then why would we not want, at the very
least, to protect people caught in the grips of addiction?

Are we not human? Do we not have compassion for our fellows? Is it not
a social good to prevent needless suffering? Is it not worth our while
to keep people as healthy as possible, in the hope or the knowledge
that they might kick their habit one day?

This is harm reduction.

We ought to be familiar with the concept if we are ever to have a
reasonable discussion about such things as needles in prison, or
safe-injection sites in Toronto.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D