NEEDLE-EXCHANGES FOR FEDERAL PRISONS URGED

Health activists are urging the Harper government to implement
needle-exchange programs in federal prisons, saying the rising number
of inmates infected with HIV and other diseases poses a serious
threat to public health.

Richard Elliot, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal
Network, said studies from prisons across Canada have shown that
inmates have 10 times the rate of HIV than the general population and
more than 20 times the rate of Hepatitis C -- a blood-borne disease
that affects the liver and is spread through sharing drug equipment.

Many inmates are drug users and Elliot said they often resort to
makeshift needles made from things like ballpoint pens to inject
themselves and pass around to other inmates.

While federal prisons do offer condoms and bleach to sterilize
makeshift drug equipment in an attempt to reduce the scourge of
disease, Elliot said it's not enough to stem the number of infections
growing out of drug use and unsafe tattooing.

Eventually, Elliot said, inmates get out of prison and can bring the
infectious diseases into the community.

According to Correction Services Canada, 1.6 per cent of federal
inmates -- about 218 people -- were known to be HIV positive in 2006.

The rate of infection in the general population is about 0.2 per cent.

"It's high and it's going up," Elliot said during a recent visit to
Winnipeg. "We disproportionately incarcerate drug users who are
engaged in high-risk behaviour and we're putting them in prisons
where there's limited access to addiction treatment."

A spokesman for Correctional Services Canada said they are unable to
say how many inmates at Stony Mountain Institution are living with
HIV, saying it is a "violation of the Privacy Act."

However, statistics made available to the Free Press five years ago
showed the Prairie region had the second-highest number of federal
inmates infected with HIV in Canada, with an estimated 1.8 per cent
of the population infected.

No federal prisons support needle-exchange programs in Canada, and a
pilot project that introduced safe-tattooing to curb the rising
number of prison infections was axed in 2006 by federal Public Safety
Minister Stockwell Day.

Countries such as Switzerland and Iran offer needle-exchange programs
to inmates.

A spokeswoman for Day's office said he is unavailable to comment on
the issue, but that the federal government does not support "the use
of illegal drugs or facilitating the use of illegal drugs in our
prisons system."

"We will continue to support education initiatives that Correctional
Service of Canada has put in place to educate inmates about the
dangers of illicit tattooing," Day's press secretary Melisa Leclerc
said in an e-mail statement Monday.

"However, like all Canadians, inmates must take responsibility for
their own health."

Anne Marie DiCenso, executive director of Toronto-based Prisoners'
HIV/AIDS Support Action Network, said as many as 60 per cent of
incarcerated Canadians are current drug users, and not offering them
clean needles is a big health concern.

She said the government already supports other harm-reduction
programs in prison, including offering condoms to inmates to promote
safe sex, even though they don't want inmates to have sex in jail.

DiCenso said not offering clean needles may cost the health system
more in the long run, noting it costs between $20,000 and $30,000 a
year to care for a person who is HIV positive.