RCMP'S E DIVISION SHOULD STAND UP FOR ITSELF

The RCMP has its problems but nothing justifies cowering before
special interest groups. This time, it's E Division that's under fire
from the Pivot Legal Society in a Vancouver battleground where
electoral politics has nothing on the politics of supervised drug injection.

The Downtown Eastside's Insite is on the brink of becoming Canada's
worst public policy disaster, yet last week the Pivot Legal Society
called for Canada's auditor general to investigate the RCMP's
authority to commission research into the facility's effects on crime
and associated issues.

The problem? First -- and despite the information being available on
one website over a year ago -- Pivot alleges the research was
"secretly" commissioned; secondly, though two reports were favourable
to Insite, two were critical: one by Garth Davies, a professor at
Simon Fraser University and the other, the now seminal analysis titled
A Critique of Canada's INSITE Injection Site and its Parent Philosophy.

Written by Dr. Colin Mangham, a veteran of nearly 30 years in
substance abuse prevention and a former professor of health education
at Dalhousie University, the critique painstakingly questions studies
suggesting Insite either saves lives, reduces crime and disease
transmission, or encourages treatment. It also exposes the facility's
parent philosophy that drugs are a lifestyle choice, a premise whose
ethical contradictions can only be resolved by legalizing drugs or, as
the city of Oslo recently determined, by closing its injection facility.

Dr. Mangham confirmed to me this week that nothing in his paper has
been disproved or even specifically challenged. Instead, and given its
status as the new four-letter word, it is being dismissed as
"ideologically" biased though as someone once observed, name-calling
is the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.

It's not the first time. Like Davies and Mangham, Health Canada's
panel of experts summarized first the studies' positive findings then
their methodological and design flaws. Among many qualifications to
the studies' assertions, the panel noted how only five per cent of
drug addicts in the area were using the facility and of those, only 20
per cent on a regular basis.

Its report was promptly dismissed as "political."

And when addiction treatment specialist Dr. Donald Hedges attempted to
appear before a parliamentary committee to argue Insite is encouraging
risky behaviour (the heroin addict needs progressively higher highs),
he was harrassed and intimidated by demonstrators.

Thug democracy rules and now it's the RCMP. Never mind the quality of
the work, just question the right of a beleaguered institution to
undertake it. To make matters really interesting, point to derogatory
remarks coined by a retired constable about the B.C. Centre for
Excellence in HIV/Aids which nonetheless powerfully symbolize the deep
chasm between the epidemiologists who dominate Insite scholarship and
officers who must work in an area which after five years of Insite
remains an open-air lavatory. Literally.

Let's be clear. All experts, however narrow their disciplines, have
important contributions to make. Those with experience in the field
are no less important than those in academe. But there is good reason
why neither should dictate public policy which must save lives,
reconcile competing interests and address complex issues. Only the
citizenry through its elected representatives can do this.

Still, if the Pivot Legal Society wishes to involve the auditor
general, so be it. Transparency is always a good thing. And while
she's at it, why not open the books of all the service organizations
in the Downtown Eastside. Why not reveal the names of board members,
peer reviewers, their fees and salaries, spousal relationships,
political connections and who, in what government department,
motivated by what rationale, is authorizing payment for all this.

Better still, why not just concentrate on ending drug use and
addiction.

As the RCMP begins its internal review into this matter, let E
Division stand tall for its own area of expertise. Since access to
drugs is the biggest challenge to recovery from addiction, no
treatment or prevention agenda is possible without a law and order
agenda. Sweden's zero-tolerance model and mandatory treatment for
addicted repeat offenders should also be considered.

Margret Kopala's column on western perspectives appears every other
week.