Pubdate: Sun, 20 Mar 2016
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Sue-Ann Levy
Page: 5

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT INSITE

Drug intervention experts and law enforcement officials who lived
through the Vancouver safe injection site experience insist there was
no decrease in either overdoses or drug-related crime.

Dr. Colin Mangham, a researcher and consultant in drug prevention for
37 years, told the Sun from B.C. last week he was "shocked at how
weak" the research was into the effectiveness of InSite, the safe
injection site set up in 2003 by Vancouver Coastal Health in the
city's Downtown East Side.

Mangham says the 30-35% reported decline in fatal overdoses among
those using InSite was subject to "interpretation bias" - meaning the
same people who created the program did the research on it.

Retired Vancouver cop John McKay, the inspector assigned to the area
from 2003 to 2006, writes in a statement to the respected Lancet
medical journal in 2012 that the 65 police officers assigned to the
area once InSite opened were "integral" to the lowered overdose rates.

McKay said by phone last week they quickly realized they had to adopt
a strategic policing effort because the impact of InSite was huge on
surrounding Gastown and Chinatown. He said people were living on the
streets injecting, dealers were there (having recognized that their
clients were permitted to be in possession of the illegal drugs),
"human defecation was everywhere," there were needles in the alleyways
and "a lot of violence."

Young students at one school situated about five or six blocks away
from InSite constantly had to watch for abandoned needles in the
schoolyard, he adds.

"Harm reduction for drug addicts is harm production for the rest of
the community because of the behaviour of the people (the addicts),"
McKay says.

He said despite the fact the Vancouver agreement talked about four
pillars - prevention, enforcement and treatment for drug addicts in
addition to harm reduction - the first three weren't really evident.

Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women of Canada and one
of 14 intervenors in the Supreme Court case dealing with InSite,
writes in a March 16 letter to Toronto's medical officer of health,
Dr. David McKeown - who is avidly pushing for three safe injection
sites in Toronto - that InSite didn't reduce overdose deaths.

She cites stats directly from the B.C. government that show deaths
from overdoses in Vancouver's East Side even increased from 28 in 2003
to as many as 46 in 2007 and 40 in 2009.

Landolt, a board member of Canada's Drug Prevention Network, says
reports have shown only 3% of InSite users are actually referred for
further treatment.

"Our concerns are the addict is not put into consideration ... he's
enabled to have more drugs," she said by phone last week.

Mangham says the harm reduction movement is "very political" and many
efforts were made to censor him. He feels all kinds of money has been
funnelled into harm reduction at the expense of treatment or prevention.

"Harm reduction is at best a cop-out," he says. "What you're going to
get in Toronto is more and more money spent accommodating something
that is permissive."

Anna Marie D'Angelo, spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, took
"great exception" to most of the contentions about the research bias
and the lack of decrease in overdose deaths or crime, claiming they
were all "inaccurate."

"We are firm that InSite, based on all the evidence, is beneficial to
clients and has caused no harm around the site," she says, implying
that I only see the issue in "black and white" terms and that I "don't
care about helping these people get off drugs."
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