PRISON NEEDLE USE ALARMS ANALYSTS

Researchers Call For Inmate Needle Supply

Up to 15 per cent of incarcerated drug users report injecting heroin
and cocaine while behind bars, according to one of two new studies
that say Canadian prisons are contributing to the spread of the virus
that causes AIDS.

The findings are so worrisome the researchers at the B.C. Centre for
Excellence in HIV/AIDS, who conducted the studies, have renewed calls
for in-prison needle exchanges to reduce the risk of dirty syringes
spreading HIV and Hepatitis C infections, which are common among inmates.

The sharing of used needles in prisons is "a recipe for disaster,"
says Dr. Evan Wood, a principal investigator on both studies.

The first, in this week's advance online edition of the Journal of
Public Health published by Oxford University, followed 1,247
intravenous drug users, half of whom spent time in jails at some point
during the six-year study. Almost 15 per cent of those incarcerated
reported injecting heroin or cocaine in prison, most of them with used
syringes.

The second study, published in the Drug and Alcohol Review this week,
followed another group - 902 injection drug users at Insite,
Vancouver's controversial supervised injection facility. Approximately
one-third reported spending time behind bars at each six-month
follow-up in the two-year-long study and five per cent reported
injecting drugs while incarcerated.

Meanwhile, police in Toronto have issued a warning about a potentially
deadly batch of heroin circulating the streets after eight people were
admitted to one hospital for severe overdoses in less than two weeks.

Investigators say that Humber River Regional Hospital in north-central
Toronto has seen eight people near-death from heroin overdoses since
March. 26.

The side-effects exhibited by the eight patients were more severe than
those regularly linked with using the drug.