THE BATTLE IS JOINED FOR NORTH AMERICA'S ONLY SAFE INJECTION SITE
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Canadian Press re****ts retired police officers, including one who
traveled halfway around the world, are asking the federal government
of Canada to keep Vancouver's supervised-injection site running.
Traditional, heavy-handed enforcement methods have been a failure in
fighting drug use, they told a news conference on Tuesday.
Three retired cops, either members or sup****ters of a group called Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, endorsed the Vancouver Insite program
which offers addicts clean needles, a safe place to inject and access
to counselling and detox.
"We all agree that most of society's problems with illegal substances
are not caused by those substances but rather by the over-enforcement
of our drug laws through the war on drugs," said Tony Smith, a 28-year-
veteran of the Vancouver police.
"We believe that drug addicts should not be treated as criminals but
receive non-judgmental medical assistance for their addictions."
Keeping drugs illegal simply provides an op****tunity for international
traffickers to make huge amounts of money, he added.
The Insite program in Vancouver's blighted downtown eastside operates
with an exemption from federal drug laws which expires at the end of
next month.
Sup****ters, including the city's mayor, the provencial health
minister, the provincial nurses association and the police chief,
sup****t the program. They say it saves lives, encourages the use of
detox programs and hasn't lured more crime to the area.
Insite was the first safe-injection site in North America. When
launched in 2003, Vancouver, the province and Ottawa sup****ted the
program, but it's time will run out on June 30 unless Ottawa elects to
extend the exemption.
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement has not announced whether the
clinic will be permitted to stay open. The Vancouver Sun says the
Conservative Party doesn't want to be seen sup****ting an endeavour
that "sanctions drug use." The paper points out the Party's core
sup****t came from those who agree with PM Stephen Harper's strong
stand against crime and drug use
Liberal MP Keith Martin from British Columbia told the Hill Times he
believes the Conservative government's plan is to try and eliminate
harm-reduction from Canada's drug strategy all together. "I believe
the government is putting on short-term extensions, so if they get a
majority government they can kill [safe injection sites] all
together."
Martin, who is also physician, said he worked in detox centres in B.C.
on and off for 12 years and that seeing the "ravages of addiction" is
what has made him such an advocate of Insite and other harm-reduction
strategies.
"If the government fails to allow communities across Canada to have
supervised injection, they will be committing murder. They will be
allowing people to die that could have been saved," he said. "We have
a moral obligation to help drug addicts."
Martin said he believes the Conservative government's opposition to
Insite is rooted in an ideological aversion to the concept of harm
reduction as a way of dealing with drug abuse, which he said is
"appalling." He added: "The government takes an ideological moral
position against addicts. I believe it's a medical issue."
Recently the International Journal of Drug Policy published articles
by scientists from around the world condemning the federal government
for interfering politically with the site's research.
Insite has been the subject of numerous peer-reviewed studies in
places such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The lancet, The
British medical Journal and the Journal of the Canadian Medical
Association. These studies have shown a reduction not just in harm to
the addicts serviced but also a reduction in the "nuisance" that these
people provide to others.
However, those who oppose the whole concept don't much care for
scientific re****ts. They are on a moral crusade.
But sup****ters of Insite are on a crusade, too.
A convoy is rolling across Canada right now to raise awareness about
the site and increase knowledge about how it saves lives. And to build
sup****t to keep it open.
Thomas Kerr, with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was one
of the scientists responsible for the scientific evaluation of the
facility.
"The scientific sup****t for this initiative is overwhelming," Kerr
said, citing more than 30 published peer-review studies that have
sup****ted the program.
"We should not right now be discussing if this facility should
continue to operate, we should be asking the next question, which is:
"How can we ensure that Canadians living elsewhere can enjoy the
health benefits of such a facility?"
What follows is a lengthy article from StoptheDrugWar.org and Drug War
Chronicle.
Vancouver's Safe Injection Site Fights for Its Life -- Again
The only officially-sanctioned safe injection site in North America,
Vancouver's InSite will have to close its doors June 30 if the
Canadian federal government does not extend its exemption from
Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. But while the
Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made no
secret of its distaste for the program, it has very strong community,
local, provincial, and international sup****t, and its sup****ters are
now engaged in a strong campaign to ensure its continued existence.
Situated on Hastings Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, home to
one of the hemisphere's largest concentrations of hard drug users,
InSite has operated since 2003, when it was granted a three-year
exemption by the then Liberal government. With the advent of
Conservative government, with its ideological opposition to programs
that "encourage" or "facilitate" drug use, InSite's continued
existence has been shaky. Twice, the Conservatives have granted the
program tem****ary 18-month exemptions, saying that more research on
its efficacy was needed.
But now, after five years of monitoring and evaluation, the results
are in: According to peer-reviewed scientific studies, InSite
increased the use of addiction treatment services, increased the use
of detox services, reduced needle sharing, led to improvement in
neighborhood public order and quality of life, resulted in no increase
in drug-related crime, prevented overdose deaths, and helped reduce
the spread of HIV/AIDS among drug injectors.
As if the nearly two-dozen studies of InSite were not enough, the
Conservative government last year commissioned its own study,
"Vancouver's INSITE service and other Supervised injection sites: What
has been learned from research?," which was released in early April.
According to Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd, who was
hired by the government to advise the committee overseeing the study,
the research shows that InSite has no apparent negative impacts, has
resulted in "modest decreases" in drug use, and has not disturbed
public order.
In fact, said Boyd at a press conference announcing his findings,
InSite should not only be continued, but the program should be
expanded to other locations. "I think our data suggests... the
building of additional facilities of a similar kind in neighborhoods
where they are needed would yield benefits much in excess of the costs
required for such projects," he said.
That's unlikely under the Harper government, which is ideologically
opposed to such harm reduction practices and in fact removed funding
for them from its anti-drug budget. As Harper put it last October:
"Because if you remain an addict, I don't care how much harm you
reduce, you're going to have a short and miserable life."
Harper has also scoffed at empirical evidence when it conflicts with
his agenda. In a January speech to party faithful, he mocked opponents
who cited falling crime statistics in challenging his emphasis on law
and order. "They try to pacify Canadians with statistics," said the
prime minister. "Your personal experiences and impressions are wrong,
they say; crime is really not a problem."
More recently, Health Minister Tony Clement and his underlings have
sounded similar themes. Science would not be the only factor in
determining whether to continue InSite's exemption, Clement's
undersecretary, Winnipeg MP Steven Fletcher told The Canadian Press
earlier this month. While the government would make a "rational and
thoughtful decision based on science," it must also take into account
"the realities of the situation," Fletcher explained. "There's
multiple sides to this and they all have to be taken into
consideration," said Fletcher.
When pressed in parliament by Vancouver East MP Libby Davies, a
staunch InSite sup****ter, Clement vowed to make a decision before June
30 and responded to her criticism about rejecting the science
sup****ting the program: "We are the government that actually wants
more research, that actually commissioned more research because we
want to make sure this decision is the right decision for Canada, for
addicts and for the community in Vancouver," he said. "That is the
decision we have made, more research and more consideration. That is
because we are open-minded and we want to make the best decision for
Canada and Canadians."
Now, as the June 30 deadline looms, InSite's sup****ters have
mobilized. Already this month, the International Journal of Drug
Policy published articles by scientists from around the world
condemning the federal government for interfering politically with the
site's research, Boyd held his Ottawa press conference, advocates held
a rally in a Downtown Eastside park featuring 1,000 white crosses to
symbolize the people who didn't die from drug overdoses while
injecting at InSite, Vancouver street nurses picketed the office of
the Vancouver Police Union, whose president is a leading critic of the
site, BC Nurses Association president Debra MacPherson held a press
conference to tout the health benefits of InSite, and all three BC
civic parties have signaled their joint sup****t of the program.
"We're fully behind the effort to keep InSite open," said David
Hurford, director of communications for Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan.
"It is part of the solution, not part of the problem, and it is a
bottom-up solution from the grassroots. The federal government has
said it sup****ts grassroots decision-making, so why should bureaucrats
from 3,000 miles away be making decisions for us here?" he asked.
The mayor's office is "working with local stakeholders to help
communicate the benefits of InSite," said Hurford. "We wrote to the
health minister last week asking him to keep the site open, and at a
minimum, to extend the permits until all pending legal issues are
heard."
Hurford is referring to a lawsuit pending in the BC courts that
challenges Health Canada's jurisdiction over InSite. That suit argues
that since under Canadian law, health care is the domain of the
provinces, the federal government should not have control over InSite.
But that lawsuit will not be settled by the end of next month.
Opposition politicians have also joined the fight. "This government
chooses to view harm reduction as nothing more than dirty words, at
the expense of protecting the safety and health of Canadians," said
Liberal Party public health spokesperson Dr. Carolyn Bennett.
"The results from the InSite project show measurable evidence that it
saves lives," said Liberal MP Dr. Hedy Fry, who played a key role in
bringing the agreement that allowed InSite to open. "This has won it
widespread sup****t not only from experts in Canada but from the
international scientific community, from the Vancouver police and from
residents of the Downtown Eastside," said Dr. Fry. "It is simply
irresponsible to ignore scientifically-based proof of the efficacy of
harm reduction programs like this, and base public policy on ideology
alone because real people suffer the consequences."
"The Conservative government must stop its unconscionable interference
in scientific research on Vancouver's safe injection site," added New
Democratic Party MP Libby Davies, who represents the Downtown
Eastside. "Medical researchers from the University of British Columbia
have revealed that Harper and his team have been suppressing evidence
and denying funding to scientists who are looking objectively at the
merits of Insite," she said.
"More than 20 medical and academic studies have been published showing
the health and social benefits of InSite. We now have both scientific
fact and evidence from users in our community that this facility is
helping, not hurting the people of our city. The research record shows
that Insite saves lives and increases public safety," Davies
continued. "Harper doesn't understand that you can't just hide the
facts whenever they don't suit your political agenda. We need a change
in direction. It's time for this government to make decisions based on
evidence instead of ideology -- InSite needs to be kept open."
"What we want is a 3 =BD year renewal of the exemption from the
Controlled Substances Act," said Nathan Allen of InSite for Community
Safety. "The fact that the Harper government has not granted this
renewal shows they are very reluctant to sup****t the community."
While the Harper government has previously said it needed more
research to evaluate InSite's efficacy, that dog won't hunt anymore,
said Allen. "They've already spent more than $1.5 million studying
InSite, they've produced two dozen academic papers, and they've
concluded that it has all kinds of positive impacts. We're wondering
what questions the government has left to ask," he scoffed. "InSite
has undergone the most thorough and well-funded scrutiny of any health
clinic in the country."
In the event the government refuses to grant another exemption, Allen
said he hoped it would respect provincial authority and local
autonomy. "This has been a regional response to a local crisis here in
Vancouver. We need to let the people here on the ground do what they
need to do. If not, people will die," he predicted bluntly.
The clock is ticking for InSite, but the pressure is mounting on the
Harper government. The next few weeks will determine if that pressure
is sufficient to overcome the government's ideological opposition to
the safe injection site.
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