Harm-reduction advocates say need-exchange efforts have lost ground

A tearful Bernie Pauly acknowledged Victoria’s street community, including some who have died, as she described Victoria’s stalled harm-reduction efforts to a packed community forum Wednesday night.

 

Pauly, an assistant nursing professor and a research fellow at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research, said Victoria’s harm-reduction plan had vision but has lost ground — and its fixed needle exchange.

 

“In 2002, I thought we were poised for change,” said Pauly. “In 2004, we had the four pillars of harm reduction — prevention, treatment, housing and enforcement.”

 

Now, six years later, Victoria has not delivered harm-reduction services and does not have a comprehensive action plan, said Pauly.

 

The fixed needle exchange was shut down in May 2008. The Cormorant Street site operated for six years before being evicted because of neighbours’ complaints about disturbances and hazards associated with the operation. Mobile needle exchanges now operate on regular routes.

 

The Vancouver Island Health Authority has been on the hunt for a fixed site for a needle exchange. A proposal for a permanent facility on Princess Street near downtown Victoria was shelved in November.

 

When the needle exchange closed, addicts started reusing needles. And some started selling needles, said Pauly, who did some research on the number of police calls to areas frequented by drug addicts. What she found is that drug use has spread out, and it’s harder for addicts to return used needles.

 

“We’ve had policy and we’ve had vision, but we’re not acting on it,” said Pauly.

Mark Haden, who runs a needle exchange in a community health centre in Kerrisdale — a Vancouver neighbourhood he described as filled with students and old ladies with grey hair — talked about harm reduction in simple terms for the audience of about 120 people. Society is comfortable with harm reduction in other areas, such as teenage sexual behaviour, or women who drink during pregnancy, or youth who sniff gasoline, he said.

 

“We don’t involve the police. We use public health tools and we don’t criminalize or ignore the behaviour,” said Haden.

 

Don MacPherson, Vancouver’s former drug policy co-ordinator and author of the Four Pillar Drug Strategy, encouraged city councillors in the audience and heads of community organizations to find out “who the hell is blocking programs and deal with it.”

 

He described Victoria’s burst of energy in 2004, 2005 and 2006 but, like Pauly, said things have gone backwards.

 

“Mobile services should enhance other services, not take their place,” he said to applause.

In Victoria, support is high for harm reduction at 71 per cent and for the needle exchange at 69 per cent, said MacPherson.

 

“You have to keep pushing,” said MacPherson. “To delay action is to delay services to people who are seriously in need of access to health care. And addiction is a public-health issue.”

 

ldickson@tc.canwest.com