Pubdate: Wed, 05 May 1999
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (Canada)
Contact:   Louise Dickson

SOCIETY IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST INTRAVENOUS DRUG USERS

Society is committing genocide against intravenous drug users and
everybody knows it, delegates at the eighth annual Canadian conference
on HIV/AIDS research were told Tuesday in Victoria.

"The government has the means to stop it and they are not doing
anything about it," Dr. Martin Schechter told the conference's closing
session.

"If someone from Mars landed here, they'd say this is social murder.
It's going to get very grim."

Schechter, an epidemiologist and national director of the Canadian HIV
trials, was referring to the almost 12,000 drug addicts living in
downtown Vancouver's eastside.

"Over 2,000 are HIV positive and almost all of them have hepatitis C,"
said the doctor.

Schechter believes society has to take a much broader approach in
dealing with drug addicts.

He believes strategies including the availability of better treatment
for drug addicts, prevention of addiction, availability of methadone,
safe injection sites, widespread access to clean needles and safe
injection practices would improve the situation.

"I would even go so far as to advocate trials of medically supervised
heroin which has been done in Switzerland and Amsterdam and appears to
be successful for those addicts that don't respond or won't come in to
methadone [treatment]," he said.

Addicts will tell you their lives revolve around acquiring drugs, said
Schechter.

"Can you imagine if you had an addict who was provided clean
pharmaceutical heroin under medical supervision and then had the rest
of their day to get a job instead of breaking into your house or
getting rousted by the police?"

The medical profession is beginning to understand the overlap in the
way HIV and hepatitis C are transmitted, said Schechter. "Right now
and for the past several years, the overlap has concentrated in
injection drug users."

Hepatitis C is transmitted much more easily than HIV, he said. People
can become infected using someone else's razor or toothbrush.
Hepatitis C is also transmitted very efficiently when people share
dirty needles.

"Such a great proportion of injection drug users are infected that
when you share with a stranger, there's a significant chance that
person is going to be infected." 
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