UVIC PROF LECTURES PM ON TORIES' DRUG POLICY

University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd's weekly letters to Prime
Minister Stephen Harper on drug research haven't garnered a response
from the federal government, but others around the world are reading.

"I've received many, many e-mails from people all over Canada," said
Boyd, a drug policy researcher.

On Feb. 1, Boyd, along with the Beyond Prohibition Coalition of
Vancouver, launched a website at www.educatingharper.com to inform
the prime minister and concerned Canadian citizens about drug policy
and harm reduction.

At the same time, she began a letter-writing campaign. Each week she
heads to the post office with a letter and an accompanying article,
pays for postage and sends it off to the Prime Minister's Office.

"I haven't received a letter back, not even a form letter. But I
would hope ... just out of sheer curiosity, that he would look at his
mail now and then to see what Canadians are thinking," Boyd said.

She has 52 articles planned out, a weekly reading list that can be
found on her website. The first articles deal with the failures of
drug prohibition and criminal justice initiatives.

The drug researcher, on sabbatical this year, says she was outraged
by the federal government's crime bill C-26, which cracks down on
drug traffickers -- and adds mandatory minimum sentences for growing
marijuana -- as well as budget funding increases for police
enforcement with only nominal amounts for harm reduction and treatment.

More than 78 per cent of federal drug funding goes toward criminal
justice initiatives, while only three per cent was allocated to harm
reduction, Boyd said. That allocation flies in the face of sound
academic research, she said.

It convinced her that Harper needed to do his homework. In her
letters she includes 25 peer-reviewed studies of Vancouver's
supervised injection site Insite, where people can inject drugs with
health professionals on hand to offer everything from treatment for
overdoses to addiction counselling referrals.

The federal government rejected the Vancouver Health Authority's
request for a 31/2-year extension for Insite and instead in October
2007 gave the operation only a six-month lease on life.

"The [research is] well balanced methodologically, sound, with no
exaggeration or claims that can't be supported," she said. Most
researchers believe Insite has been a tremendous success, she said.

However, others point to Vancouver's seedy and troubled Downtown
Eastside as overcome by crime and drugs and general chaos, all made
worse by Insite. But Boyd argues that crime and public disorder have
not increased because of the supervised injection site.

"When I walk through Downtown Eastside what I see is the result of
extreme poverty and marginalization and cutbacks, gentrification,"
Boyd said. "We should be ashamed we don't provide affordable housing
for people, adequate social supports, mental health supports."

Given a chance, Boyd would like to try to convince the prime minister
to allow Victoria and other Canadian cities to run supervised
injection sites. The Vancouver Island Health Authority is considering
applying to Health Canada for an exemption from Canada's drug laws to
pilot a supervised injection site as a research project.

Boyd says supervised injection sites are a unique way to reduce drug
overdose deaths and hospital emergency visits, to prevent or reduce
the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and to
put drug users in contact with social services and health care
providers, as well as detox and treatment programs and addiction counselling.

"I truly believe they serve a good purpose," Boyd said.