Needle exchange and health care

Editorial: Times Colonist

 

The need for a fixed needle exchange in Victoria is clear to everyone involved -- the Vancouver Island Health Authority, the city, social agencies. Needle exchanges aren't miracle cures. But they save lives, reduce some of the disorder on the streets and connect intravenous drug users to services.

 

Yet for the last two years, this region has been without a proper needle exchange. And the latest plan from VIHA still fails to provide this needed health service.

 

VIHA now proposes to exchange needles at 10 community facilities on Vancouver Island, including four in the capital region. The program would operate as part of existing centres -- clinics and agencies. The locations won't be revealed until the staff have been advised; none would be downtown.

 

The program is better than nothing. It should reduce both the sharing of needles and the number of syringes disposed of in less secure locations.

 

But that is a small part of the function of proper needle exchanges. They also provide information, health care, counselling and access to other services, including detox and treatment. They help drug users avoid costly illnesses and, when the time is right, can encourage and support them in treatment.

 

Those services -- the critical ones for both drug users and the public -- will continue to be missing.

 

Needle exchanges are not new. They operate successfully in cities across Canada and around the world and have been extensively studied. The health and social benefits are clear; reducing the transmission of hepatitis and other infections, for example, saves the system millions of dollars each year. The exchanges do not increase crime or drug use.

 

And in most cases they have little impact on neighbours. Victoria's first needle exchange began operation in 1987; for most of the next two decades few people even knew it existed.

 

That changed. The last location, on Cormorant Street, was too small and under-staffed. Changing patterns of drug use meant increasing disorder. All those involved failed to respond to the growing frustration, anger and fear of neighbours. The exchange was evicted. A clumsy effort to open a new site on Pandora Avenue had to be abandoned. For two years, services have been missing.

 

Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of needle exchanges, fearing perhaps that such programs sanction drug use.

 

They do not. And in any case, the current proposal involves providing needles. What it lacks is the harm- reduction support.

 

An advisory committee had recommended combining a mobile exchange, a fixed site and satellite locations. It's the best solution, particularly with appropriate funding and police and municipal support.

 

Two years is far too long to fail to provide a needed health service.