Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:18 PM

What evidence?? There is no evidence that harm reduction works!! I'm sorry to say. The only evidence is that harm reduction policies don't "cause anymore harm". Do they stop people from doing intravenous drugs for any significant amount of time? No. Do they lower crime rates? No, (the increased police presence around Vancouver's safe injection site did) Do drug addicts use them for the majority of their shoot ups? No. If you really believe in helping people you do not support harm reduction. You believe in providing housing counseling programs AND reducing access through law enforcement. All of those statistically work to reduce drug dependency. Harm reduction does not. Just because nobody died at a safe injection site doesn't mean that it actually stops people from being addicts and consequently developing HIV.

A proud gay man

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 8:55 PM

A proud gay man - you couldn't be more wrong, all the studies on the subject shows that harm reduction does work, it not only saves lives but keeps addicts healthy until they are able to quit. They engage addicts with health professionals and counselors who do a lot to keep the addict healthier than they otherwise would be and they offer a way out when the addict is ready to quit, or attempt to quit, it often takes multiple attempts and many years to successfully quit drugs like heroin and other opiates. Methadone is one of the most successful harm reduction strategies ever created, the evidence that methadone saves lives and helps stop the spread of disease is beyond question. Needle exchanges are also a critical component of harm reduction along with safe injection sites and methadone. Clean needles and teaching addicts how to sterilize their own needles prevents the spread of any blood based diseases. Addicts don't quit if they're dead.

Reducing the supply through increased law enforcement actually has the effect of causing more deaths from overdoses, if addicts have to go longer between doses their tolerance can drop to the point that their usual dose will overdose them or sometimes they'll take a larger dose knowing it'll be a long time to their next one in the hopes that a larger dose will last longer which can also result in overdose. When heroin or other opiates are more easily available addicts tend to be able to manage their "levels" better with fewer resulting overdoses. Keeping people from becoming addicts in the first place requires social programs to help people deal with the problems in their lives in healthier ways, it requires programs aimed at eliminating abuse and helping victims of abuse cope and recover from it. However Harper and his gang don't believe in social programs which would actually prevent people from becoming addicts in the first place, their "take care of yourself" ideology doesn't work for people who can't take care of themselves in a healthy drug free way and only leads to more addiction and crime in society.

Harm reduction strategies are based on the actual behaviour of addicts and what will actually keep them safer and healthier, the proof that they work is undeniable, except of course to those too blinded by their ideology to see reality like Harper and his gang. I forget the exact numbers but something like 80%-90% of all opiate addicts suffered from some form of abuse and use opiates as a way of dealing with the pain of their lives, these are the sorts of people hardest to reach and to treat, harm reduction programs build trust between them and the medical community that can help them, without that trust being developed few of these sorts of addicts will seek help from institutions they're not comfortable with and don't trust.

Opiates change a person's brain structure making it extremely difficult to quit and even when an addict does quit the effects of opiates on their brains lasts for a very long time afterwards. I saw a documentary on a study done in a north European country, I forget which one, but they gave hard core heroin addicts who couldn't quit any other way access to clean pharmaceutical grade heroin and they were able to live normal stable lives on it, what turns people into "junkies" like the stereotypes you see on the streets are the result of the criminalization of heroin, its connection to organized crime and the lack of quality control in heroin production, the drug itself doesn't do that to people, the circumstances around the drug turn people into that. Methadone works very well for most opiate addicts, its also an opiate but a safe pharmaceutical one that lasts for 24 hours or so and doesn't increase a person's tolerance for it, even though it means opiate addicts continue to use opiates it enables them to lead normal healthy lives.

For some reason addiction is the only health problem that many in our society believes should be treated through our legal system which in reality is the least able to help people. Addiction to drugs like opiates is a health problem and should be treated as such, that means treatment based on evidence and facts instead of political ideologies and the courts. No one would tolerate Harper or any other politician dictating how any other illness should be treated so why is it okay for them to dictate how addiction is treated? Just because harm reduction isn't a cure for addiction doesn't mean it isn't medically needed, improving health and quality of life is a big part of all medical practices. Addiction treatment should be left to medical professionals and not politicians, Harper should have no more say on how addicts are treated than he does on how cancer patients are treated and ideology should never dictate medical treatments either, keep it all evidence based which in this case fully supports harm reduction which by the way is the model used by all major institutions that deal with addiction and who have studied the issue of best practices in treating addicts including CAMH in Toronto which is a world leader in treating addicts and developing new treatment techniques. Believe the professionals in this field whose work is based on facts and evidence and ignore ideologues like Harper who value their ideology over facts and reality.

Rich

Thursday, July 22, 2010 12:55 PM

Where the numbers then? Yes of course, methadone is a helpful treatment, and of course most drug addicts in general have suffered abuse of some kind and yes prevention would be the best. But when it comes to insite there are no numbers to support them. People say the Insite does all of these wonderful things like building trust...ect. But if that's the case why don't the insite clients use insite for most of their shoot ups? Why does insite need such a (relatively) large police presenace? Where is the data that says, "this number of addicts that were treated at Insite and this is how long they stayed clean" ? That was the whole point in the first place. that was the research question. It's not, "how many people don't die at insite" that's hollow data. Just because a program doesn't harm someone doesn't mean it works!

Ultimately we are trying to keep these people from continuing their self destructive behaviors.

A proud gay man

Friday, July 23, 2010 1:01 AM

Dear, "A proud gay man". You ask for "numbers" (ok, do you want me to refer you to all the studies published in the Lancet and BMJ). Would you even understand the "evidence" - do you even care? I suspect not, as you prefer to rely on moralist rhetoric. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the “evidence”. I don’t want to live in a country where injection drug users are forced to inject using dirty puddle water! Don't ever forget what Vito Russo said, to them we are "the disposable populations of fags and junkies who deserve what they get". ...you're not proud at all, just a conservative puppet.

At the Vienna Conference Now

Friday, July 23, 2010 11:26 AM

Inter-venous drug users who do not have access to clean needles will use dirty ones because that is the nature of the addiction. Addiction is an illness. Safe injection sites and clean needles decrease the spread of HIV. Proud gay man, you are either not very bright or your moralizing anti-drug rant simply means that you are a Harperite. I actually think you are both.

Smart is better than Proud

Friday, July 23, 2010 12:15 PM

Oh please, the issue is no longer about health.

It is an issue of criminality.

The criminalization of HIV/AID$ as supported by HALCO, the HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic in Toronto among other HIV organizations busy cozining up to HALCO - so Harper etc. are just following it's logic.

Health? It's a Criminal matter now!

www.xtra.ca/.../...riminalization_of_HIV-7529.aspx

tim

Saturday, July 24, 2010 10:05 PM

From supervisedinjection.vch.ca/.../user_statistics There are currently 12,000 clients registered at the facility.

2009 user statistics

There were:

276,178 visits to the site by 5,447 unique individuals
An average of 702 visits daily, up to a maximum of 1,171 visits daily
An average of 491 injections daily
484 overdose interventions with no fatalities
2,492 clinical treatment interventions
6,242 referrals to other social and health services, the vast majority of them were for detox and addiction treatment
411 admissions to OnSite detox They have a bunch of research and facts on its success. Rich, that was extremely well said, thank you.

Jamie