Clement takes a swing at harm reduction
Wednesday, August 6, 2008 by David Eby
Rather than committing to funding detox and treatment on demand for people battling addiction in Vancouver, Tony Clement, Canada's Health Minister, showed up at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City and made unsubstantiated allegations about Vancouver's safe injection site causing "harm addiction."
According to CTV, Clement is reported as saying: "Allowing and/or encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins is not harm reduction, it is the opposite ... We believe it is a form of harm addition."
Beyond the fact that nobody except drug dealers are encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins, let alone saying that encouraging drug use is harm reduction, Clement's government's failure to fund treatment programs and desperately needed detox in Vancouver makes this allegation that his government is "opposed" to people injecting heroin into their veins ring a bit hollow.
According to CTV, Clement is reported as saying: "Allowing and/or encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins is not harm reduction, it is the opposite ... We believe it is a form of harm addition."
Beyond the fact that nobody except drug dealers are encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins, let alone saying that encouraging drug use is harm reduction, Clement's government's failure to fund treatment programs and desperately needed detox in Vancouver makes this allegation that his government is "opposed" to people injecting heroin into their veins ring a bit hollow.
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More funding should be made available for treatment programs. Definitely. But, not in the friggin DTES! If you are an addict then you should be sent far, far away from the DTES where you will actually have a chance to clean up your life!
The amount of social programs in the DTES is truly astounding. It simply acts as a magnet for people down on their luck. I wonder how many people's lives have actually got better after arriving in the DTES?
I wonder if all of these people who don't view InSite as harm reduction support methadone programs?
It's the easiest way to spot hypocracy on this issue really. But then again, self obtained heroin doesn't bring revenue into big pharmacy and it doesn't make the gov't look like it's actually doing something about this health issue...
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Heroin purchased through the open black market brings revenue into big banks, though. The banks are more powerful than the pharmaceutical industry. They aren't prosecuted and fined for laundering drug money as they were a few years back.
Sam Sullivan's desire to make heroin a medically prescribed drug, as in the CAST trial, won't fly because there is too much cash to be made (the UN Office on Drugs and Crime recently reported that the worldwide illegal narcotics trade ranks third in wealth generation, after oil and weapons) and because the economy would collapse if that money were to stop flowing into our financial services sector.
In 2007, 93% of the world opium supply was grown in Afghanistan where our troops have sustained disproportionate losses to other countries because we're in the south where the fighting's toughest. You can bet that we're taking a disproportionate share of the opium export in return.
A recent Canadian Forces recruitment TV ad depicts a military raid and seizure of illegal drugs on a ship, but it's more than a recruitment ad. It's propaganda designed to lead the public to believe that an honest war on drugs is being fought when, in reality, the government refuses to punish the money launderers and shows no concern with drug lords holding parliamentary seats in Afghanistan.
If we want to reduce harm in a big way, a party must come to power federally that will withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, beef up container inspection at Canada's ports and make heroin a doctor prescribed substance so the money remains in the medical system. The economy will take a heavy hit, Canadians will lose on their investments, but at least fewer people will die both here on our streets and on battlefields overseas.
Legalise heroin. Get the money back in tax dollars. Use some of that tax money on education?
It should still be illegal to do heroin on the streets (as it is with alcohol), but you should be free to do what you want in your own home.
regarding comments about CAST and presumably NAOMI - making heroin a legally prescribed drug. Nice idea in theory - but ridiculously naive and myopic.
First of all, Where are we supposed to get this doctor-prescribed heroin? The UN's Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is an established protocol that pretty much ensures legal heroin is controlled by big pharma - as a result, it's priced at a premium.
That leaves black market heroin as the only affordable option, but are DTES junkies somehow more important than poor villager in Afghanistan or the Golden Triangle? Who do you think control the drug trades in these regions - they're not nice people - we're talking about thugs and warlords and, in the case of Afghanistan - the Taliban. Frankly, I'm not in favor sacrificing the freedoms and security of people half a world away just so First Word addicts can languish in a subsidized stupor.
Secondly, heroin is not the only illicit drug used in this town. What about crack and crystal meth? Should we be cutting deals the cartels and the bikers to supply THAT for prescription?
I appreciate that with heroin - some addicts, under regular prescription can lead relatively normalized lives - and maybe even hold a job if they are so inclined.. But there is no hope whatsoever with crack and or meth - and I'm afraid once we open the door to prescribing one illicit drug - well, it's a slippery slope.
And how exactly will these drugs be paid for? Unless you're suggesting tax-payers foot the bill, we'll continue to live with the highest property crime rates on the continent.
Frankly, I think this all boils down to a lack of treatment. We've all but eliminated the incentive for treating addiction by privatizing poverty industry services provided on the DTES. There is far too much money to be made by keeping addicts coming back that treating them and getting them back into normal society.
I think real leadership would involve beefing up treatment and couple it with a 'tough love' approach to justice. I'm not in favour of convicting people for possession .. but if you get popped for committing crimes to feed your addiction you should get a sentencing option of jail or treatment (not treatment in jail, but a nice supportive facility).
I don't think it's someone's "right" to be a junkie. It's their right to healthcare and treatment. And its everyone's right to life, liberty and security of person.
While I also criticize the government's habit of downloading services to private non-profit providers, the idea that this is somehow responsible for the lack of funding for treatment is a bit much.
Every non-profit service provider I know of has complained vociferously about the lack of treatment facilities. Whether they run housing, advocacy services, family programs, or mental health services, every agency is immensely frustrated that members and clients who want treatment cannot get it.
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Yes, anonymous, and we've all had a reminder about where money that should be spent on those services is going this weekend with the provincial Liberals' huge salary increase and resultant massive pension boost for the top hundred civil servants, whispered on the opening day of the Beijing Games.
Old School, the Taliban does not control the heroin trade in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it's been a busy weekend so I can't respond as I would like to. Please check out some of the links I have added to a photo here:
flickr.com/photos/blackbird_hollow/2267359185/
and a 2007 Toronto Star Article:
eaves.ca/2007/12/07/aghanistan-and-vancouvers-downtown-eastside/
Working together in 1999/2000, the Taliban and the UN had eradicated almost the entire opium poppy crop so that the amount exported in the year before the 2001 allied invasion had dropped from more than 3,500 to 450 tonnes. Since the invasion, the amount exported has risen sharply each year. Last year, it was 8,400 tonnes. From the Star article:
In April, the United States appointed William Wood, nicknamed “Chemical Bill,” its new ambassador to Afghanistan. In his previous post, Wood championed and oversaw the fumigation of large swaths of the Colombian countryside. The result? For every 67 acres sprayed, only one acre of coca was eradicated. Moreover, production increased by 36 per cent. In addition, the spraying negatively impacted legitimate crops, contaminated water supplies and increased respiratory infections among the exposed populations.
Wood is in Kabul for a single reason – to execute a similar plan in Afghanistan. Poppy production, once held in check by the Taliban government, is exploding – up 60 per cent in 2006. Poppies yield 10 times the value of wheat, so it is unsurprising that about 10 per cent of an otherwise impoverished Afghan population partakes in the illicit poppy harvest. It earns them upwards of $3 billion (U.S.) a year, or roughly 65 per cent of Afghan GDP.
CNN wants you to believe the Taliban controls the opium trade. There's plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.
Regarding our home grown chemists and their friends in the criminal underworld, it should be kept in mind that all of this occurs under the constant watch of the US DEA from its offices in downtown Vancouver. The deals have been cut, old school, and continue to be negotiated.
What should be done first is immediate dismissal of American intelligence and law enforcement offices and personnel from our country. Of course there should be cross-border communication and cooperation in tracking down dangerous criminals, including those with white collars, but as it stands their reach into our society is too deep. I would want them out first because they have lost legitimacy in the eyes of many American citizens after evidence of their involvement with and profiteering from the illegal drug trade surfaced in recent years. We can defend our homeland well enough without their help and bringing our battle-hardened troops home from the poppy war would be a great place to start. We could recruit vets with recent overseas combat service and put them to work busting labs and taking down criminal gangs here at home. Part of that would include greater information and resource sharing between our military and police. In other words, you have a real war on drugs.
Oh, and the amount of money saved by ending our participation in the Afghan war could fund a doctor-prescribed heroin maintenance program and a treatment facilities boom.
Blackbird,
I'm not a big fan of DEA operating in our country either - nor the "war on drugs" for that matter.. but that said - I'm not for one second in favour free drugs for addicts even something as relatively (to crack and meth) benign as heroin.
Let's focus our resources on treatment, aggressively so. Mandatory in lieu of incarceration. I know the poverty industry would prefer to see an entrenched population of permanently addicted clients - but to me the proposal is doomed to failure.
With regards to your assertion about the Taliban and heroin - I have to disagree. In fact, the Star op-ed piece you site only mentions how the Taliban once kept the opium trade in check, prior to 2001... That was then, this is now. Opium production has since skyrocketed in Afghanistan - and many experts concur that it is the Taliban profiting from this: trading opium for arms.
It's not just CNN or the US State Dept saying this.. check this recent article from The Independent (arguably the most left-leaning major newspaper.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/drugs-for-guns-how-the-afghan-heroin-trade-is-fuelling-the-taliban-insurgency-817230.html