NEW STUDY SHOWING INSITE'S ROLE IN GETTING ADDICTS INTO TREATMENT
SHOULD SILENCE CRITICS

As the evidence mounts, it's becoming harder and harder for
detractors to condemn Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection facility.

We already knew, thanks to studies published in the world's top
peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, that the site is
associated with many positive outcomes: Insite has been attracting
the most high risk users, has helped quell public disorder and has
reduced needle sharing.

Despite all of this positive evidence, detractors have continued
accusing Insite of "facilitating" drug use, and have argued that it
doesn't help people to get off drugs. Now, with the latest study by
researchers at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, published
in the current issue of the top-ranked substance abuse journal
Addiction, it's time to put those objections to rest.

The study built on a previous paper in the New England Journal of
Medicine, which found that regular use of Insite and contact with
Insite's addiction counsellor were each independently associated with
entry into residential detoxification programs.

The study begins by noting that the number of individuals entering
detox rose 30 per cent in the year following Insite's opening.
Researchers then assessed a random group of 1,031 individuals who
used Insite, and found that entry into detox was associated
independently with entry into methadone maintenance and other
addiction treatment programs.

This suggests that Insite is helping to get people into long-term
treatment, thereby reducing or ending their drug use. And many of the
people Insite helps are, as the study's authors note, "extremely
difficult to reach with conventional treatment strategies."

This study also puts a lie to the claim that Insite facilitates drug
use since, for some people at least, it seems to be doing the exact
opposite. Insite is therefore not only a powerful harm-reduction
measure, but is also an important adjunct to treatment.

This in turns means that the Conservative government, which is due to
release its anti-drug strategy next week, no longer has a valid
objection to Insite or to developing supervised injection facilities
elsewhere across the country.

After all, when Health Minister Tony Clement last year announced the
deferral of the decision to extend Insite's exemption to operate, he
said, "Do safe injection sites contribute to lowering drug use and
fighting addiction? ... Given the need for more facts, I am unable to
approve the current request to extend the Vancouver site for another
three-and-a-half years."

Now Clement has more facts, as the Addiction study answers his two
questions in the affirmative. So he has no reason not to extend
Insite's life, and to ensure that supervised injection facilities
(SIFs) form an integral part of the government's anti-drug strategy.

Or as University of California San Diego Medical School professors
Steffanie Strathdee and Robin Pollini put it in an Addiction
editorial accompanying the study:

"It is time for politicians who oppose SIFs on the grounds that more
research is needed to be honest with their constituents: it is lack
of political will, not lack of data, that is keeping these
life-saving public health services out of the hands of drug-dependent citizens."