49 replies to this topic

[Gregory Hartnell]

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If the Victoria City Council goes ahead with its misguided plan to open tax-payer funded injection sites, it will only compound the horrific problems now evident to all at the Cormorant Street needle exchange.

The local monopoly daily newspaper recently gave overdue attention to the tragic 'war zone' of anti-social activity there, which is aided and abetted by well-intentioned, but seriously flawed social policy.

The first priority of this City Council should be the provision of a number of small-scale abstinence-based residential treatment facilities. The Council should not wait, as is its habit, for senior government funding to materialize, but should act responsibly and pro-actively.

By excercising such responsibility, the regional, provincial and federal government funding for abstinence-based recovery houses is more likely to be forthcoming. Once these recovery houses are fully operational, the Council should phase out funding for the needle exchange.

Council should not bother even thinking about buying the Crystal Gardens for a convention facility as long as we have this growing social problem. If it does, its cynical priorities will be even more evident for all to see.

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[Mike K.]

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Council should not bother even thinking about buying the Crystal Gardens for a convention facility as long as we have this growing social problem. If it does, its cynical priorities will be even more evident for all to see.

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Victoria's tax payers shouldn't be expected to devote 100% of their attention and resources to one segment of the population.

Furthermore, why should the City of Victoria be on the hook for providing services to these individuals without a sharing of resources from the region's 12 other municipalities?

[Holden West]

The abstinence-based approach you describe may be a part of the solution. However, A wide cross-section of stakeholders, from politicians, faith-based providers, police and those at risk themselves have studied this problem intensively for many years. Their conclusion is that the [url=http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars/:a14d3]Four Pillars program[/url:a14d3] is the most comprehensive and the most likely to succeed. There is no magic bullet solution and while firm abstinence programs are successful for some, they are useless for others.

In short, while no-one doubts your resolve and sincerity, your idea has been considered and rejected for those reasons. I realize the Government providing vile drugs contradicts your values. No-one else is thrilled with it either, frankly.

You are absolutely correct in one respect--the time to act is now.

[m0nkyman]

Four pillars is wonderful, but it seems that all of the effort is going into harm reduction and enforcement, and no serious resources are going into prevention and treatment.

Anyone want to take a wild guess at how many detox beds exist on Vancouver Island, by gender?

How about how much funding there is for intervention for addicts below the age of sixteen?

[G-Man]

Why do his posts start and end with plus signs, is this internet lingo I do not understand?

[Caramia]

I would argue (along with many health care providers, cops, and addiction councillors) that a Safe Injection site is a big step towards intervention. It brings the addicts right to the nurses and councellors, in a controlled situation, where they can help addicts at the moment of decision. One of the biggest flaws in the system as it is, is that somehow you have to decide to get clean, and then stay clean for long enough before you are even eligible for help. Often people dont make it past this speedbump. You couldnt ever design a system that could get health nurses into every crackhouse to pick off those who were thinking of quitting or reaching the end of their rope. But it isn't that expensive to create a safe injection site and let them come to you.

[G-Man]

^ I am just going to say I agree with Caramia.

[Mike K.]

Earlier today Rob Randall mentioned that according to the recent downtown drug use/homelessness report compiled by Victoria Police, heavy drug users require $900 to $1200 worth of drugs a day! Police estimate there are 45 of these individuals on our streets at any given time of the day and any given day of the year.

[Edited for #]

[Rob Randall]

This is from the report on homelessness presented to the City this week by the Police:

-Estimated 45 intensive I.V. drug users, 70% from with CRD, 30% coming from outside the CRD and being fairly new to Victoria.

-Approx. 15 of the 45 are First Nations females. More I.V. drug users are appearing on the streets and females are growing at a faster rate than male users.

-The drug of choice is injectable cocaine, followed by crack cocaine. There also appears to be a recurrent number of those who are using heroin. However, antother current police perspective is that very few street/homeless persons identified themselves as using crystal Meth.

-Most of the 45 homeless identified as intensive I.V. drug users are not utilizing available shelter space, and would rather hang around together in a "tribe-like" culture miving from AVI, to Streetlink, to the west side of the Johnson Street Bridge.

-Anecdotal reports of typical users consuming 10 to 30 grams of cocaine or heroin per day.

In order to pay for these drugs, those 45 or so users must together commit $50,000 worth of crime every day.

[Mike K.]

Are the 45 individuals from the report year-long residents of Victoria, or does that include the summer migrants that typically come here from Vancouver and then leave by winter?

[Rob Randall]

According to the survey, which was conducted in September and October of last year:

-Of the 315 homeless, 163 were sleeping on the streets. Approximately 70% of the 163 identified themselves as having lived in the CRD for the past 5 years. The other 30% identified themselves as coming from elsewhere in the province, or from other parts of Canada and had been in Victoria for several weeks to several months. There were only around 6 persons who identified themselves as recent arrival from the City of Vancouver--contrary to earlier perceptions.

[Mike K.]

Thanks.

So I assume that those figures only include individuals who use shelters or live on the streets in downtown Victoria, and not heavy drug addicts who squat in "crack houses" across the metro?

45 heavy drug addicts using heroin and/or cocaine (injection drugs) is awfully small in comparison to some ~5,000 injection drug users in Vancouver's DES. (the link with the DES figure: http://www.hrw.org/p...anada062303.htm)

[Holden West]

They said on the news the count included areas outside the core, like the Gorge and Dallas Rd., Beacon Hill park etc. and that after several police attempts at searching out homeless in the bushes, many of them migrated back into the downtown core.

[ressen]

Legalize all drugs then build a hospital to house, feed and distribute the drugs for free to the clients (patients). When you have free and unlimited access to your drugs of choice it suddenly becomes less important to be 'high' at every opportunity.

[Rorschach]

If we let them use dirty needles and get AIDS, wouldn't the homeless eventually die out and resolve the problem by natural selection? What are we preserving their lives for? To live out in a stupor sucking resources from society? What happened to only the strong survive? Where are the churches? I'm feeling a bit Scroogey on the issue today. Perhaps the First Nations, the churches or families of homeless can be financially responsible for the surplus population instead of it being the problem of every taxpayer and every tourist.

[G-Man]

^ They then leave needles with diseases strewn about the neighbourhood. These are still human beings and there is some hope of getting people off drugs. I have met people that have fought addiction and gone on to lead extremely successful lives. One person I know has made many millions in property and has been clean for 15 years. To just give up on a section of society sounds very dangerous.

[m0nkyman]

I would argue (along with many health care providers, cops, and addiction councillors) that a Safe Injection site is a big step towards intervention.

Not when it sucks all the funding away from detox beds.

Social service providers will tell you there is huge demand for detox. There are people begging for help getting off drugs, and our answer is to spend the money making it easier to stay on drugs?

That's crazy.

When we've helped everyone who wants help, then I'll start looking at people who are happy being a drug user.

On the flip side, much as I wouldn't want one next door, needle exchanges are a crucial and affordable health care service. Safe injection site, not so much.

[G-Man]

Many people that want help are still turned away when they need it most. We do need more detox beds.

[Holden West]

Getting smart on drugs

Times Colonist Editorial
Published: Wednesday, January 17, 2007

It doesn't matter if you're against drug use because you think it destroys lives, it's morally wrong, or you just don't want your car broken into again by an addict.

Whatever the reasons, we have a shared interest in reducing drug addiction and the massive problems it causes.

That interest, not ideology or wishful thinking, should be driving our drug policy.

It's not. A study published this week in the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review is the latest to report that Canada is wasting huge amounts of money on a doomed drug policy.

The study, which looked at the efforts of the federal drug strategy secretariat, found money is misdirected toward measures that have been tried and failed over decades.

The study found 73 per cent of the secretariat's $245-million budget is spent on law enforcement -- about $180 million.

Treatment, in desperately short supply across B.C., gets about $35 million under the program.

Harm reduction and prevention get about $7 million each.

Yet, the study notes, the best evidence suggests enforcement efforts are ineffective in reducing drug use, the harm that results or even criminal activity. Often, the efforts increase the damage to communities.

Efforts to attack the supply side of the drug trade have been costly failures, from Prohibition through to the present. But we still focus efforts -- and dollars -- repeating past mistakes.

And we ignore the chance to build on proven successes in reducing the impact of drug use through treatment and harm reduction measures, like safe-injection sites. There is nothing magical in these measures. But they reduce the damage done by addiction and slowly reduce the demand side of the drug trade.

Prevention gets even less emphasis, the study found -- $1 for every $25 spent on enforcement. And, according to the report, much of that money is wasted on programs that have been proven ineffective.

There's nothing surprising in the study. A 2001 review by the federal auditor general offered the same warning about the misplaced emphasis on enforcement.

The Harper government has promised a new drug strategy within months. We hope it does not repeat the same expensive mistakes that have already caused so much damage.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007

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So do we really think the neanderthals in the Conservative government have the common sense to do what's right? Or will it be "business as usual" for years to come? Isn't it odd that the party that claims to be anti-drug seems to be doing everything in its power to ensure the status-quo?

[FunkyMunky]

From Monday's edition of [url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070115.DRUGSB15/TPStory/?query=drug:57e37]The Globe and Mail[/url:57e37]

POSTED ON 15/01/07

Storm brews over drug strategy
Ottawa putting too much emphasis on law enforcement, medical experts' report says

ROD MICKLEBURGH AND GLORIA GALLOWAY
VANCOUVER, OTTAWA -- The federal investment in the war on drugs has been an abject failure, according to a report to be published today.

Canada's drug strategy, renewed with much fanfare in 2003, has put too much emphasis on law enforcement instead of on means to combat illicit drug use and minimize its human toll, says the report that is to appear in the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review.

The criticism appears unlikely to sway the federal Conservative government from its intention, confirmed by a Health Department spokesman, to tilt the strategy even further toward pure law-enforcement measures.

The study, which found that critical programs in prevention, treatment and research are being underfunded, comes five years after Canada's Auditor-General issued a scathing report that said the country's drug strategy focused too heavily on enforcement and needed a more "balanced approach."

Further, despite a mandate to do so every two years, the drug strategy's secretariat has yet to issue its first report to taxpayers, and hardly any of the strategy's initiatives, particularly police measures, are evaluated for results, the new study says. Its four authors are with the renowned B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, world leaders in the study of AIDS-related issues.

"The federal government continues to invest heavily in policies and practices that have repeatedly been shown in the scientific literature to be ineffective or harmful," the study team concludes.

Using Access to Information and data compiled from a variety of government websites, the published study examined how Canada's drug strategy has allocated funds and its effectiveness in reducing drug-related harm, which is the strategy's stated aim.

It found that law enforcement consumed by far the largest chunk (73 per cent) of the drug strategy's annual $245-million budget, with no demonstrated impact on curbing the use of illegal drugs.

At the same time, 14 per cent is spent on treatment, 7 per cent on research, and 3 per cent each for addiction prevention and harm reduction.

"The overwhelming emphasis continues to be on conventional enforcement-based approaches which are costly and often exacerbate, rather than reduce, drug-related harm," the study says.

The authors say that illicit drug use by Canadians is higher than ever, and so are ensuing health costs, primarily from rising HIV infections among injection drug users, says their report.

In an interview, study author Thomas Kerr, also with the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia, said he fears matters will worsen under such a U.S.-style, get-tough-on-drugs philosophy.

"You would be hard-pressed to find one credible expert who believes the strategy in the United States is working," Dr. Kerr said. "It doesn't reduce drug use, and it doesn't promote public health. I am very concerned we are going to be taking many steps backward."

In fact, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his plan for a national drug strategy during the last election campaign, he made no mention of treatment and prevention, promising instead to institute harsher punishments, prevent the decriminalization of marijuana, and make so-called "precursor drugs" more difficult to obtain.

Erik Waddell, spokesman for Health Minister Tony Clement, confirmed that the Conservatives will be following a different path, with even more emphasis on law enforcement.

"Our own national drug strategy is in the works. It's something we've actually been working on for some time," Mr. Waddell said. "The previous government took its own approach, which we happen to disagree with.

"In every poll, when Canadians are asked whether they want more law enforcement or less, they want more. So the bottom line is that Canada's new government will be taking a different approach."

In December of 2001, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser criticized federal attempts to curb illicit drug use. Ms. Fraser said the government's actions to that point had "focused on supply reduction [enforcement] not demand reduction."

Fredericton Police Chief Barry MacKnight, who chairs the drug abuse committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said he agrees that prevention and treatment have to be emphasized along with enforcement.

"The CAPC has always endorsed a balanced approach in dealing with the drug abuse and addiction issues in our communities," Chief MacKnight said yesterday.Libby Davies, the NDP House Leader whose Vancouver riding is home to Vancouver's safe-injection site for heroin addicts, said she fears that the Conservative government is interested only in penalizing users rather than helping them kick the habit.

"They are ideologically driven to play this game that enforcement is going to deal with addiction and drug use and substance issues, which it isn't," Ms. Davies said. "Criminalizing drug users is not only harmful but it doesn't make any economic sense."

The authors of the new report point out that while an innovative project such as Vancouver's safe-injection site is held to an extraordinary standard of scrutiny, traditional approaches are rarely evaluated by the government.

The authors point specifically to the widespread DARE program that puts police into schools to warn students about drugs. In 2004-05, drug strategy funds were used to recertify 550 existing DARE officers and train 150 more.

"Yet studies published in peer-reviewed journals . . . have been consistent in showing that the program does not prevent or delay drug use, nor does it affect future intentions to use drugs," the study says.

Drug courts don't measure up either, despite their growing popularity, taking more than $3-million in drug strategy funds in 2004-05 without solid scientific evidence that they work, the study says.

And the economic costs of the program's failures are high, the study points out. In Vancouver alone, the medical bill for treating HIV infections among injection drug users has been estimated at more than $215-million a year.

Dr. Kerr said he finds it "immensely frustrating" that so much government money is spent on law enforcement and so little on harm reduction.

"I'm paid to treat disease and death, and I don't like what I'm seeing. Canada simply does not have an evidence-based drug strategy," he said. "There's way too much ideology and politics, and not enough science and principle."

Julio Montaner, president-elect of the International AIDS Society and director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said the public-health implications of drug addiction cannot be overemphasized.

"We are in this business because drug addiction has become a significant determinant of HIV infection and hepatitis C," said Dr. Montaner, who was also involved in the study.

Yet critics, such as the RCMP, abound over the city's safe-injection site, which is trying to curb unsafe drug practices, he said. "They go around posturing that this spending of money on harm reduction could be the end of Canada's drug strategy."

The study's audit of the strategy's budget shows that "to be so far from the truth it's not funny. It uncovers the spin masters who are trying to put out a message of fear-mongering over harm reduction," Dr. Montaner said, which accounts for only 3 per cent of drug strategy funds.

"The study also points to the inadequacy and inefficiency of current spending. There is no assessment of law-enforcement measures, while selected new initiatives are held to extraordinary levels of proof. Then, when they show some benefit, there is a strong desire to ignore the evidence," he said.

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