GIVE PRISONERS FREE NEEDLES: HEALTH OFFICIAL

Most Used Drugs Before Jail, 21 Per Cent Still Do Behind Bars

B.C.'s provincial health officer proposed Monday that prisoners be given
hypodermic needles to prevent the spread of deadly diseases from one
prisoner to another.

Dr. Perry Kendall called for a pilot project at the B.C. Correctional
Centre for Women in the wake of a study that documents unsafe injection
drug use inside the Burnaby prison.

The study showed 70 per cent of the inmates surveyed used injection drugs
like heroin and cocaine before going to jail.

Twenty-one per cent continued using injection drugs inside.

The study -- presented at a Vancouver conference of the Canadian
Association of Nurses in AIDS Care -- says some drug-addicted women express
relief when they are admitted to the B.C. Correctional Centre for Women in
Burnaby.

"They see incarceration as an opportunity to 'get clean' from street drugs,
to have a roof over the head and have regular meals," it states.

"However, some women tell us that they continue to use drugs inside prison,
sharing injection equipment with other inmates."

Each year, about 1,200 women are admitted to the prison, either because
they are facing criminal charges or have been sentenced to serve provincial
or federal time.

For health professionals trying to slow the spread of deadly, blood-borne
diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C, the study offered some unsettling
statistics: Of the 97 women surveyed last spring, the 22 who reported
injection drug use in prison disclosed they were using the drugs in ways
that transmitted disease.

Eighty-two per cent of the women using injection drugs in prison shared
their own needles with another prisoner; 77 per cent used dirty needles.

Dr. Ruth Martin, a doctor who treats prisoners at the facility and is one
of the authors of the study, said it shows it's time for Canadian prisons
to give out needles to prisoners, because drug use in prisons is a fact.

"The majority of admissions to this prison are due to drug use and drug
addicts continue to use and inject drugs in prison," she said in an
interview after her presentation. "They continue to share needles, and
blood-borne viruses are being transmitted because of shared injecting
equipment in prison."

Fiona Gold, an AIDS prevention street nurse with the B.C. Centre for
Disease Control, visits the prisoners she met on the streets of Vancouver.
She also worked on the study.

According to Gold, prisoners at the women's jail have access to a wide
range of mind-altering substances, including heroin and alcohol, all of
which are prohibited in prison.

"Pretty much what's on the street is in the jail," she said, adding that
heroin is more common than cocaine, because inmates know cocaine-induced
behaviours are more likely to be noticed by prison guards.

Martin said she discussed the study findings last year with both federal
and provincial prison officials, but authorities haven't yet acted. She
noted that a women's prison in Switzerland has a needle distribution
program, and suggested that the women's prison in Burnaby would be good
place for a pilot program that has no precedent in the Canadian prison system.

Wayne Willows, a spokesman for the provincial corrections branch, said the
government tries to keep drugs out of prisons but also provides prisoners
with bleach to sterilize needles and tattooing equipment.

"Obviously, there's no tolerance for drug usage within our facilities, but
we also have to deal with the other aspect of using, and that's harm
reduction," he said.

"If they are going to use it, what can we do to assist them so they're
using it in a way that's not unsafe for them."

However, Willows didn't commit the government to the harm reduction program
endorsed by Kendall and those who studied drug use at the Burnaby prison.

"That would be a matter we would have to discuss," he said.

Martin said she was proposing a "needle distribution" program, not a
"needle exchange" program where dirty, used needles are exchanged for new
ones. Instead, each prisoner would be responsible for keeping and cleaning
their own needle or "rig."

Said Gold: "There are needles in jail already. How different would that be?
I think it would be safer to have the needle in a little box that the
inmate looks after."

At supervised drug injection centres in Switzerland, Germany, Australia and
The Netherlands, drug users sit at study-cubicle-sized desks and shoot up
with sterile needles instead of shooting up in an alley, using puddle water
and sharing needles with HIV-laden addicts.

Kendall is co-chair of a federal-provincial committee on injection drug
use, which has proposed a scientific study of what the senior governments
call "supervised injection sites."

"I continue to think we have an ethical imperative to work on this,"
Kendall told the conference.