Pubdate: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2002 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Glenn Bohn Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange) GIVE PRISONERS FREE NEEDLES: HEALTH OFFICIAL Most Used Drugs Before Jail, 21 Per Cent Still Do Behind Bars B.C.'s provincial health officer proposed Monday that prisoners be given hypodermic needles to prevent the spread of deadly diseases from one prisoner to another. Dr. Perry Kendall called for a pilot project at the B.C. Correctional Centre for Women in the wake of a study that documents unsafe injection drug use inside the Burnaby prison. The study showed 70 per cent of the inmates surveyed used injection drugs like heroin and cocaine before going to jail. Twenty-one per cent continued using injection drugs inside. The study -- presented at a Vancouver conference of the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care -- says some drug-addicted women express relief when they are admitted to the B.C. Correctional Centre for Women in Burnaby. "They see incarceration as an opportunity to 'get clean' from street drugs, to have a roof over the head and have regular meals," it states. "However, some women tell us that they continue to use drugs inside prison, sharing injection equipment with other inmates." Each year, about 1,200 women are admitted to the prison, either because they are facing criminal charges or have been sentenced to serve provincial or federal time. For health professionals trying to slow the spread of deadly, blood-borne diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C, the study offered some unsettling statistics: Of the 97 women surveyed last spring, the 22 who reported injection drug use in prison disclosed they were using the drugs in ways that transmitted disease. Eighty-two per cent of the women using injection drugs in prison shared their own needles with another prisoner; 77 per cent used dirty needles. Dr. Ruth Martin, a doctor who treats prisoners at the facility and is one of the authors of the study, said it shows it's time for Canadian prisons to give out needles to prisoners, because drug use in prisons is a fact. "The majority of admissions to this prison are due to drug use and drug addicts continue to use and inject drugs in prison," she said in an interview after her presentation. "They continue to share needles, and blood-borne viruses are being transmitted because of shared injecting equipment in prison." Fiona Gold, an AIDS prevention street nurse with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, visits the prisoners she met on the streets of Vancouver. She also worked on the study. According to Gold, prisoners at the women's jail have access to a wide range of mind-altering substances, including heroin and alcohol, all of which are prohibited in prison. "Pretty much what's on the street is in the jail," she said, adding that heroin is more common than cocaine, because inmates know cocaine-induced behaviours are more likely to be noticed by prison guards. Martin said she discussed the study findings last year with both federal and provincial prison officials, but authorities haven't yet acted. She noted that a women's prison in Switzerland has a needle distribution program, and suggested that the women's prison in Burnaby would be good place for a pilot program that has no precedent in the Canadian prison system. Wayne Willows, a spokesman for the provincial corrections branch, said the government tries to keep drugs out of prisons but also provides prisoners with bleach to sterilize needles and tattooing equipment. "Obviously, there's no tolerance for drug usage within our facilities, but we also have to deal with the other aspect of using, and that's harm reduction," he said. "If they are going to use it, what can we do to assist them so they're using it in a way that's not unsafe for them." However, Willows didn't commit the government to the harm reduction program endorsed by Kendall and those who studied drug use at the Burnaby prison. "That would be a matter we would have to discuss," he said. Martin said she was proposing a "needle distribution" program, not a "needle exchange" program where dirty, used needles are exchanged for new ones. Instead, each prisoner would be responsible for keeping and cleaning their own needle or "rig." Said Gold: "There are needles in jail already. How different would that be? I think it would be safer to have the needle in a little box that the inmate looks after." At supervised drug injection centres in Switzerland, Germany, Australia and The Netherlands, drug users sit at study-cubicle-sized desks and shoot up with sterile needles instead of shooting up in an alley, using puddle water and sharing needles with HIV-laden addicts. Kendall is co-chair of a federal-provincial committee on injection drug use, which has proposed a scientific study of what the senior governments call "supervised injection sites." "I continue to think we have an ethical imperative to work on this," Kendall told the conference. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom