Pubdate: Mon, 11 Aug 2014
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Lisa Wright
Page: C5
Cited: http://www.catie.ca/sites/default/files/TOSCA%20report%202012.pdf
Cited: http://www.substanceabusepolicy.com/content/9/1/31

THE FACTS ON INJECTION SITES

Pros outweigh cons, but policy is unchanged, says Lisa Wright.

With mounting evidence of the benefits of a harm reduction,
health-centred approach to drugs and the people who use them, we are
left wondering when there will be enough evidence to convince the
Conservative government to change its approach to drug policy.

The peer reviewed article by PhD candidate Ehsan Jozaghi and
colleagues released on Monday in the journal Substance Abuse
Treatment, Prevention and Policy is another addition to the growing
list of scientific research outlining the benefits of supervised
injection facilities. With more than 90 safer consumption sites in
operation worldwide, Insite, North America's only legally sanctioned
supervised injection facility, is the most researched. Scientific
evidence of the need for two supervised injection facilities in Ottawa
was first presented in 2012 with the TOSCA report.

Jozaghi's article outlines the fiscal benefits of reducing health care
costs by reducing the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C through the
opening of two supervised injection facilities in Ottawa. The
cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness focus of the article maps the
economic benefits of reducing the transmission of these diseases here
in Ottawa. While this study provides Ottawa-specific data, the
monetary benefits are well known, as a study on Vancouver's Insite
demonstrated in 2009, and a 2013 study by Jozaghi and colleagues
demonstrated the potential benefits should sites be opened in Montreal.

Is all this research enough to convince our federal government that
Canadian drug policy should abandon the historical approach of
criminalizing drugs and the people who use them, taking instead a
health-centred, harm reduction approach? Probably not. The
Conservative government's disregard for scientific evidence on harm
reduction practices is part of a persistent trajectory of governing
through indifference to scientific evidence.

Bill C-2, the Conservative government's rebuttal to the Supreme Court
of Canada's Insite decision, is an example of this contempt for
scientific evidence. The bill, now at second reading, lists over 26
conditions that must be met to open another facility in Canada, of
which only one concerns scientific evidence of the medical benefits of
the site. By adding barriers to the opening of other sites, the bill
is in stark contrast to the Supreme Court decision on the need to
listen to the benefits of these sites. The decision reads, "Where, as
here, the evidence indicates that a supervised injection site will
decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no
evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the
minister should generally grant an exemption."

The federal government's indifference to scientific evidence is not
specific to drug policy. Former Justice Minister Rob Nicholson
proclaimed that, "we don't govern by statistics in our government."
But the Conservative government is not alone in its disregard of the
findings of scientific research on the benefits of supervised
injection sites. The local government in Ottawa, including Mayor Jim
Watson, Chief of Police Charles Bordeleau and Ottawa Public Health all
continuously sidetrack questions about supervised injection through an
emphasis instead on uncertainty, NIMBYism or the need for more
enforcement and treatment.

These responses to supervised injection facilities exemplify the
politicization of scientific evidence about harm reduction services,
which is a historical practice in Ottawa. In 2007, the City of Ottawa
cancelled its safer inhalation program (commonly known as the crack
pipe program) despite evidence that the program reduced the
transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C and was not financially burdensome
at $7,500 annually.

The benefits of harm reduction services are plentiful, including their
cost effectiveness. But without a drastic change in governance
strategies, the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C will not be
reduced and people will continue to die from overdose.

- ----------------------

Lisa Wright is a PhD candidate in the department of Law and Legal
Studies at Carleton University. Twitter.com/lisa_k_wright
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt