Injection site condemned for saving lives, reducing addiction

VICTORIA - Who would think that the most disturbing words I’ve seen in print for years would come from a Mountie?
When people look back on these times, they will be baffled by our persistent stupidity when it comes to drugs. From alcohol in the ‘30s to crystal meth 70 years later later we keep trying to police addictions and abuse out of existence.
In the process we have spent untold fortunes, bankrolled every organized crime group from the Mafia to bikers to Asian gangs and watched as more people suffered and died, more families were destroyed and more communities damaged.
And in all that time the approach never once showed any signs of working.
The disturbing — even obscene — words came in an RCMP report on Insite, the Vancouver safe-injection site.
The site opened in late 2003, Canada’s first experiment in giving addicts a safe, clean place to shoot up. The theory — tested in other countries — is that the site offers big benefits. People injecting drugs in the centre don’t share needles, so they don’t spread HIV and hepatitis and other illnesses. If they overdose, help is near. They can get medical care. If they’re ready to try quitting, they can be referred to services.
And they aren’t sticking needles in their arms on the street, a significant benefit to neighbours and nearby businesses.
It has worked. More than dozen serious research studies have looked at Insite’s impact. They’ve been reviewed by independent scientists and published in The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and other journals. The site has increased the chance addicts will decide to try treatment. It has cut the spread of deadly diseases and saved lives. Street problems are reduced.
And there is no evidence that it has increased drug use, which is not surprising. People are not going to go say, “hey, a safe-injection site, I think I’ll try heroin.”
But the Conservative government is unconvinced.
Insite’s three-year operating certificate was up for renewal this fall. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he didn’t have enough information to make a decision, despite the research and the support from Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver police and public-health officials.
The federal government refused to renew Insite’s operating certificate, instead giving the site a temporary reprieve until the end of next year. The prime minister said he wanted more research (then his goverment cut off research funding). Harper said he especially wanted to hear from the RCMP.
Peter O’Neil of the Vancouver Sun made a freedom of information request for RCMP documents on Insite. He found that the Mounties’ regional co-ordinator for drugs and organized crime awareness had prepared a negative report.
There were no statistics or analysis in the three-page document, just opinion. The RCMP doesn’t actually patrol the area where the site is located.
And the report didn’t provide any evidence to challenge the studies showing the site has resulted in more people seeking treatment and saved lives.
In fact, the RCMP argues, the fact that the site saves lives might be a bad thing.
''The RCMP has concerns regarding any initiative that lowers the perceived risks associated with drug use," the report says. 'There is considerable evidence to show that, when the perceived risks associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding increase in number of people using drugs.”
Stop and think what those two sentences say.
The RCMP “has concerns” about a safe-injection site or any other measure that makes drug use less dangerous.
If someone’s daughter gets AIDs, or someone’s father dies in an alley, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, says our national police force. More deaths and illness might deter others from doing drugs.
It’s cruel and stupid, especially as people have been dying for years and drug use continues.
Safe-injection sites save lives, reduce addiction and make the community safer.
And those, apparently, are seen as bad things by the RCMP and the Harper government.
Footnote: The safe-injection site has been criticized by U.S. drug officials. And reports this week revealed the Harper government has been consulting U.S. government officials on its new drug policy, holding meetings between “various senior-level meetings between U.S. officials and ministers/ministers’ offices.” It would a be a tragedy if Canada followed the disastrously expensive, ineffective U.S. approach.