THE SAFE-INJECTION MATH

Stephen Harper's Conservative government has to decide whether it
wants to adopt the war-on-drugs mentality of the United States or the
more pragmatic, harm-reduction approach of Canada.

Insite, a safe-injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside,
provides sterile needles and a nurse to attend to over-doses. It's a
modest attempt to reduce some of the harm caused by illegal drug use.
Its three-year-old legal exemption under federal drug law expires on Sept. 12.

During the last election campaign, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper
said he did not want taxpayers' money used to fund drug use. (Insite
receives $500,000 a year from Health Canada.) The signals are not
good. But the federal cabinet minister from Vancouver, David Emerson,
supports the site and says, "If the weight of arguments are in
favour, I'm sure the government will be in favour."

So let us consider the weight of arguments. On the one side: more
livable streets, fewer deaths and a slower spread of disease in a
neighbourhood with Third World rates of HIV-AIDs and hepatitis C. On
the other, the site might be seen as a form of official permission
for drug use; an official with the U.S. administration called it
"state-sponsored suicide."

On average, 607 people a day, most of them long-term addicts, show
up. In an 18-month period, the site reported 453 overdoses, but no
deaths. Assuming there would otherwise have been a 5 per cent
mortality rate from those overdoses, 22 lives were saved. The sterile
equipment helps check the spread of disease. Studies in peer-reviewed
publications such as the Canadian Medical Association Journal have
found fewer drug users injecting in public, fewer used syringes left
on the ground and more users referred to treatment programs. No
evidence has been reported of increased addiction rates linked to the
site. No increase has been found in drug-related crime around the site.

Having a safe place for the long-term addicts of Canada's most
down-and-out neighbourhood to inject drugs is hardly radical. A more
provocative form of harm reduction is being studied in Vancouver and
Montreal, in which doctors prescribe free heroin to 170 addicts who
have tried methadone treatment without success. Ottawa's funding arm,
the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, gave this initiative
$8.1-million. And that was wise. Canada should be looking at a range
of practical solutions to our cities' drug problems.

The weight of arguments depends on whether the scale contains an
ideological tilt. If Mr. Harper's government wishes to reject the
scientific evidence in favour of a moral absolutist position on drug
use, let him say so.