TOUGH-ON-DRUGS PLANS DON'T WORK, BUT GET FUNDS: STUDY

Little Spent on 'Harm Reduction' Says Report Partly Funded by B.C. Government

OTTAWA -- Roughly three-quarters of federal spending to fight illegal
drugs is going toward unproven and possibly counterproductive
enforcement measures while an insignificant amount is being spent on
potentially more effective "harm reduction" measures, says a new
study being published today.

The study was produced by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS,
an agency partly funded by the B.C. government, that is fighting a
fierce battle with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government over
the future of Canada's only supervised injection site for addicts in
downtown Vancouver.

"While the stated goal of Canada's Drug Strategy is to reduce harm,
evidence obtained through this analysis indicates that the
overwhelming emphasis continues to be on conventional
enforcement-based approaches which are costly and often exacerbate,
rather than reduce, harms," states the report in HIV/AIDS Policy and
Law Review, a publication funded partly by the Public Health Agency
of Canada and the American Bar Association.

Meanwhile, federal funding to deal with health issues like rampant
HIV infection rates among addicts is "insignificant," the study notes.

"This stands in stark contrast to recent comments made by various
stakeholders suggesting that there has been an over-investment in
harm reduction programming."

The comment was in direct reference to a statement by the Canadian
Police Association on the same day, Sept. 1, 2006, that federal
Health Minister Tony Clement questioned preliminary research
suggesting that Vancouver's supervised injection site for drug
addicts is effective.

Clement issued a news release raising doubts about Vancouver's
supervised injection site, called Insite, while announcing that he
would extend the facility's licence only until the end of this year
pending further review. Health Canada bureaucrats had supported a
three-and-a-half-year extension.

The Canadian Police Association, meeting the same day in Victoria,
publicly condemned so-called harm reduction measures. The
association, a national organization for rank-and-file Canadian
police officers, has emerged as a strong supporter of the Harper
government's tough approach to crime.

Association vice-president Tom Stamatakis, who is also president of
the Vancouver Police Union, told the media that the federal
government is focusing most of its effort and money on harm-reduction
measures such as needle exchanges and the Vancouver injection facility.

"This harm-reduction focus has led to unprecedented levels of crime
in our city," said Stamatakis, calling for a new national strategy
that focuses on treatment, prevention and enforcement.

The B.C. Centre's new study, analysing publicly available documents,
said 73 per cent, or $271 million, of the $368 million spent by
Ottawa in 2004-05 went toward enforcement measures such as border
control, RCMP investigations and federal prosecution expenses.

Of the remaining $97 million, $51 million went to treatment, $26
million was spent on "coordination and research," $10 million went to
prevention programs, and $10 million was devoted to harm reduction.

The study says the proportion of federal spending on enforcement has
dropped from 95 per cent in 2001 to the most recent figure, 73 per
cent, after the former Liberal government, responding to criticism
from the federal auditor-general and other critics that Canada's drug
strategy was uncoordinated and ineffective, began emphasizing
alternative anti-drug strategies like harm reduction.

The authors, who object to Ottawa's plans to develop a new National
Drug Strategy putting greater focus on enforcement, say Ottawa is
putting extraordinary demands on Insite to prove its positive impact.

This pressure continues even though preliminary research indicates
the Vancouver facility is resulting in more addicts seeking treatment
and fewer sharing needles.

Meanwhile, numerous studies have already shown that get-tough
enforcement measures, as well as police-run education programs like
DARE, aren't effective despite generous federal funding, the authors argue.

For instance, more intense enforcement measures push drug users
outside urban centres, where they have less access to needle
exchanges and treatment, and cause more violence, property crime, and
high-risk injecting behaviour, the study says.

"The proposed Americanization of the drug strategy, towards
entrenching a heavy-handed approach that relies on law enforcement,
will be a disaster," says report co-author Dr. Thomas Kerr in a statement.

"It is as if the federal government is willing to ignore a mountain
of science to pursue an ideological agenda."