Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jan 2014
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Andrea Woo
Note: with a report from The Canadian Press

HARM-REDUCTION PLAN MOVING FORWARD

Vote to repeal city bylaw opens door for Fraser Health Authority to
train service providers and provide needle-exchange programs

The Fraser Health Authority will soon roll out its harm-reduction plan
for Abbotsford after city council's unanimous decision to repeal a
nearly decade-old bylaw prohibiting such measures.

The authority is expected to train service providers in the Fraser
Valley municipality through March and open needle-exchange services at
existing social-service and health-care facilities by late March or
early April.

Before then, it will meet with the city and police as well as
establish a committee that will help co-ordinate, implement and
evaluate the initiative, said Marcus Lem, a medical health officer for
Fraser Health.

"The thing that makes a healthy community is having openness and
respect for everybody," Dr. Lem said Tuesday, "and what [Abbotsford's
decision] signals ... is that the community, and the leadership in the
community, is demonstrating this openness and respect for one of the
most vulnerable portions of society."

Abbotsford city council voted late on Monday night to remove a
nine-year-old provision in a zoning bylaw that prohibits harm
reduction services, such as sites that distribute clean needles to
injection drug users. The Fraser Health Authority has long said the
services are urgently needed to protect the area's roughly 500
intravenous drug users and curb the city's high rates of hepatitis
C.

Under the Community Charter, there must be at least one day between
the final reading and the adoption of a bylaw; the adoption will take
place at the next council meeting on Feb. 3.

The city had mulled the issue for more than a year, recognizing it had
a high hepatitis C infection rate and a large number of hospital
admissions due to drug overdoses. In 2010, Abbotsford had an estimated
hepatitis C rate of 65.5 per 100,000 among its non-incarcerated
population, according to a harm-reduction service plan prepared by
Fraser Health in 2012. Advocacy groups had taken it upon themselves to
distribute clean needles to users.

The conclusion of a June 2012 council report regarding a technical
review of the bylaw said, in part: "The approach of prohibiting harm
reduction use in the Zoning Bylaw limits [Fraser Health Authority's]
ability to respond to the situation effectively."

Mayor Bruce Banman said it became clear something needed to
change.

"What we were doing really wasn't working very well," he said on
Tuesday. "I think that council resigned themselves to the fact that we
need to try and do something different. And ultimately, health
decisions really do fall under the health authority."

He noted there is also an economic benefit: "The hepatitis C
medications cost as much as $75,000 per person per year. We all pay
for that. So what are we costing taxpayers on the whole by continuing
to go down the path that we were?"

The prohibition, in place since 2005, was the focus of a civil lawsuit
filed by three drug users, represented by the Pivot Legal Society, who
said it violated their Charter rights to life, liberty and security of
the person.

With the harm-reduction restrictions gone, Pivot lawyer Scott
Bernstein said the legal cases may be unnecessary.

"My sense is that, since we weren't seeking any damages, now that the
bylaw is gone we may be able to greatly reduce or eliminate the
lawsuit and the human-rights complaint," he said.

Mr. Bernstein said drug users in Abbotsford will benefit from greater
access to harm-reduction supplies. "The real philosophy of harm
reduction is that it's a doorway into access to health care to people
that are very reluctant sometimes to get contact with doctors or
nurses or social service people," he said.

"It's a first point of contact."  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D