JAIL SHOULDN'T BE A DEATH SENTENCE

If there's one thing we all know about drug abuse, it's that the
availability of safe, clean apparatus has absolutely no impact on whether
or not an addict uses. It's securing their drug of choice that's the issue.
Once they've got it, the drug is going into their veins one way or another.

If you want to cut down on drug use behind bars -- or anywhere -- you try
to stop the flow of the actual substance. Or, better, you try to get
addicts into treatment programs. What you don't do is limit their access to
clean needles, which only guarantees that they'll be doing themselves and
each other a lot more harm than the narcotic is capable of on its own.

In Vancouver and elsewhere, needle exchange programs have proven a useful
way of protecting addicts who are too down-and-out to find safe apparatus
on their own. In prisons, almost everyone falls into that category, since
there's not much way for even the most level-headed user to find his own
clean needle. So more than just useful, such programs are essential if
you're to prevent AIDS and hepatitis from becoming prison-wide epidemics --
especially considering the exponentially higher number of addicts on the
inside than the outside.

The numbers pretty well speak for themselves. According to the Correctional
Service of Canada, 1.8% of federal inmates are HIV positive; in the general
population, the prevalence rate is roughly one-tenth of that. Meanwhile,
approximately 23% of the prison population has hepatitis C -- 29 times
higher than on the outside.

Those rates aren't a coincidence: According to a 1995 CSC report, 38% of
prisoners acknowledged narcotics use. And yesterday, The Globe and Mail
reported that as many as 30 to 40 inmates routinely share the same needle.

You want immoral? I'd say it's pretty immoral to incarcerate an addict (or,
worse, someone who gets hooked on smack behind bars), turn a blind eye as
he infects himself with a deadly disease and then release him into the
general population.

Needle exchanges are in no way an endorsement of drug abuse. They're a
recognition that, as long as users are trapped in their addiction, the
least we can do is limit the harm they're doing to themselves and each
other. And unless we're prepared to condemn even minor criminals to death
sentences, the programs are as valuable in our penitentiaries as they are
in East Vancouver.