harm reduction

By BILL CLEVERLEY, Timescolonist.com

 

Sharing of dirty needles by Victoria's injection-drug users increased substantially after the city's only fixed needle exchange closed in 2008, according to a study by the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research of B.C.

 

And rates of needle sharing — a practice that contributes to the spread hepatitis C and HIV — have remained significantly higher in Victoria than Vancouver over the past three years, researchers say.

 

"There's more reusing of needles as well. So people are using the same needle over and over again, which poses a number of other health problems like abscesses," said study co-author Andrew Ivsins, a UVic graduate student.

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By: University of Victoria

 

A new report by the University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research (CARBC) reveals that Victoria’s drug users continue to share dirty needles after the closure of the city’s only needle-exchange facility.

 

About 400 people a month used the facility, which opened more than 20 years ago. In May 2008, the needle-exchange was evicted from its downtown location after months of complaints from businesses and residents about noise, crime, garbage and human waste on the two-block street on which it was located.

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CBC News

 

An article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal slams the federal government for its efforts to shut down Insite in downtown Vancouver, Canada's only safe injection site for drug addicts.

 

A co-author of the paper has told CBC News he believes the federal government should stand aside, allow the centre to operate, and abandon an appeal to the Supreme Court

 

"We've concluded after reviewing the evidence that Insite is doing what it's supposed to be doing, and furthermore that we're very concerned that the federal government has misled on the science," said Dr. Michael Rachlis, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto.

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By: The Canadian Press

 

The authors of an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reviewing the history and effectiveness of Vancouver's safe-injection site are urging the federal government to give up its Supreme Court of Canada challenge aimed at shutting the facility down.

 

The analysis, published Monday, concludes the facility reduces needle sharing, cuts overdose deaths and allows for addiction treatment.

 

The article's authors, the Peel Region's associate medical officer Dr. Kathleen Dooling and University of Toronto professor Dr. Michael Rachlis, are urging Ottawa to abandon its "last-ditch" appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

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A new report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal supports Insite and urges the Harper government to abandon its Supreme Court of Canada Challenge to shut the Vancouver facility down.

 

The report, like many before it, finds the medically-supervised drug injection site reduces needle sharing, cuts overdose deaths and allows for addiction treatment. The federal government has been wanting to shut down Insite, claiming it diverts money away from health care when studies have showed it does the opposite.

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By: Brennan Clarke, Globe and Mail

 

Two years ago, a landmark court ruling gave homeless people the right to pitch their tents in Victoria city parks. Now the province’s chief medical health officer says a bustling “tent city” made possible by that decision is on the verge of becoming a public health hazard.

 

“Any time you have a number of people camped together without hygienic facilities for a period of time there’s a potential for a health risk to those individuals,” Dr. Perry Kendall said.

 

“And if you have a group of people in an area who are using or injecting drugs, there is a risk of blood-borne infections … and that’s a potential public health issue.”

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After a 33-7 vote yesterday, Toronto City Council endorsed the Vienna Declaration, a document which denounces the war on drugs, The National Post reports.

The declaration favours public health responses to drug instead over enforcement.

“The war against drugs has failed. In every jurisdiction and in every community, we know that policing this issue is not enough,” said gaybourhood councillor Kyle Rae.

Last year, controversy erupted during a Toronto safe consumption site feasibility study when Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he planned to shut down a Vancouver’s safe injection site.

The Vienna Declaration aims to end all that.

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By. Diane Taylor, Guardian

 

Drug addicts have a lot in common with other marginalised groups, such as sex workers, people with disabilities and asylum seekers in that many people have never met them and know very little about the realities of their lives. Where there is a void of factual information, stigma and prejudice often rush in to fill the space. This week's report from the UK drugs policy commission, Sinning and Sinned Against: the Stigmatisation of Problem Drug Users, confirms this. The report finds that many people don't like drug users and that this dislike hinders the prospects of social integration and future employment for this group.

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 By: Chris Selley, National Post

 

As John Geddes reports in this week’s issue of Maclean’s, the RCMP was ready, last fall, to hold a joint press conference with the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS “to declare their agreement that research shows the ‘benefits’ and ‘positive impacts’ of supervised injection sites for intravenous drug users.” It’s a fascinating read.

 

The money paragraph quotes an e-mail from Chief Superintendent Bob Harriman, a senior drug enforcement officer, in which he proposed wording for a joint press release:

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