Politics v. science

Neil Boyd came to Parliament Hill this week with a message for
politicians: stick to the facts when it comes to drugs and harm
reduction. It's a message that city politicians should heed as well.

Mr. Boyd is a criminologist from Simon Fraser University who was hired
by the federal government to study the impact of Canada's only
supervised drug-injection site on public order. He found that the site
had had no negative impact in terms of crime or drug dealing on the
downtown east side of Vancouver where it is located. Mr. Boyd's
research, in fact, found a modest decline in drug use on nearby streets.

The reason he travelled to Ottawa was to plead with the federal
government not to let political ideology trump research in a decision
about the site's future. The Harper government, whose anti-drug
strategy does not include support for harm-reduction programs, has
been keeping the Vancouver site on a short string in recent years. It
has extended exemptions that make the site legal, but has refused to
make it permanent.

In Ottawa, city councillors cancelled a program that gave free
crack-pipes to addicts. The city's just retired medical officer of
health, Dr. David Salisbury, made the same argument about that program
as Mr. Boyd made this week: don't let politics interfere with science.

And when research shows harm reduction sites are good for public
health, politicians should pay attention.