Pubdate: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 Source: Beacon Herald, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2002 Beacon Herald Contact: http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1459 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Safe Injecting Rooms) NOTHING SAFE ABOUT SAFE-INJECTION SITES Doctors will tell you that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Health Canada should keep that adage in mind as it moves closer to accepting proposals from Canadian cities interested in establishing safe-injection sites for hard-core heroin and cocaine addicts. The ministry is currently reviewing criteria for the sites, where users would inject under supervised conditions, and the first ones could appear in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal as early as next year. Proponents suggest that safe-injection sites would help reduce the costs of crime, health care, courts and overall social disruption attributed to drug addicts. With medical professionals monitoring the actual injections, the sites will reduce the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C, and cut down on the number of users who overdose. And it's hard to argue with the numbers. A federal-provincial report on injection drug use last year estimated that there are 125,000 injection drug users (IDUs) in Canada. It suggested that two-thirds of hepatitis C infections and one-third of HIV cases can be attributed every year to IDUs. The projected direct and indirect costs of HIV/AIDS linked to IDU will be $8.7 billion over six years. And the medical costs to treat hepatitis C sufferers will be even greater. Those are the dollar figures. But if they're going to make a difference, these sites must be more than just money-saving, sanitary places to self destruct. Drug prevention and treatment need to be introduced into the equation somehow. Otherwise, as some critics have already suggested, they'll do nothing to discourage addicts from kicking a lethal habit. In fact, they may even attract more drug users. "Why not save people from the fatal disease of addiction and not just from the fatal opportunity for an overdose at some point in time?" asked U.S. drug czar John Walters in a speech earlier this week to the Vancouver Board of Trade. While many Canadians share his concern that the sites will do nothing more than promote substance abuse, the idea should not be given short shrift. In Germany and Switzerland, similar facilities have have proven successful at decreasing the number of people sharing needles and lowering the incidences of disease. But is that enough? Is that treating the symptom and not the cause? To make a real difference, the scope of the proposed safe-injection sites must be expanded to include treatment services as well, where addicts can receive medical care and drug counselling. Just as important as the bricks-and-mortar solution, though, is an attitude shift in which governments and police agencies recognize that solving the problem of substance abuse involves seeing it as more than just a crime committed by weak-willed individuals. It's a sickness, and like cancer and AIDS, it must be treated with a combination of cash and compassion. Even from a pragmatic standpoint, the best way to prevent crime and disease associated with drug abuse is to reduce the number of people abusing drugs. And that means education, and it means accessible detoxification and treatment programs. Giving addicts a safe place to shoot up is a first step. Understanding their illness and helping them to overcome it is a bigger goal to shoot for. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake