DRUG ABUSE IN PRISONS

Needle Swap Worth A Try

PRISONS are closed environments. But they are no more circumscribed
than the debate about how to run them.

Judging by the tenor of remarks posted on our online news site, the
general public went into attitudinal lockdown immediately after a
report, released last week, recommended needle-exchange programs for
convicts who are drug addicts.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network makes a compelling case, backed up
by 50 testimonials from ex-prisoners, for giving "harm reduction"
policies a try in prisons. But the plea for reform contained in Under
the Skin is falling on the deaf ears of the electorate and of elected
officials.

Sadly, it is not just inmates who pay the price for such
short-sightedness. The sharing of contaminated, makeshift needles is a
plague in prisons, but the consequences cannot be contained there. As
the report points out, the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C is 10 to
20 times higher in the prison population than in the general
population. Yet most prisoners eventually return to their families and
communities, where they spread diseases they might not even know they
are carrying.

Public health is but one of the concerns. Another is cost - and the
fact is that needle-exchange programs are far more cost-efficient than
treating patients with incurable, infectious diseases.

In an ideal world, it would be impossible to smuggle drugs into a
jail, and that would solve the problem. But the real world is not
water-tight, and where there is a will, there is a way. To completely
stop drug trafficking in prisons, you'd have to resort to body cavity
searches of all staff, visitors and volunteers every single day.

Interdiction will only get you so far, and to admit that is not
admitting defeat. It is recognizing reality. No prison fully succeeds
in stanching the flow of drugs, even in repressive countries like
Iran. More than 60 prisons worldwide, including in Iran, have
implemented various needle-exchange programs. Some are run by staff,
others by outside agencies and yet others rely on automatic dispensers.

They do seem to be successful, though. The report argues supplying
clean syringes to prisoners does not result in increased drug use,
that the needles are not turned into weapons that endanger staff, and
that they facilitate referrals to substance-abuse programs. Those who
disagree should present evidence to the contrary, not shriller objections.

Ultimately, this is not about going from a punitive environment to a
permissive one, tolerating drug abuse and coddling criminals. It is
about best practices and better outcomes.

The federal government should be open to new approaches, given its
inability to stop the influx of drugs and the spread of disease in its
institutions. Yet it remains firmly entrenched in the needle-exchange
naysayers' camp.

Ottawa need not buy into the "harm-reduction" philosophy wholesale.
But what's the harm in launching a pilot project in a Canadian prison?
Put the rhetoric on both sides to the test, and may the penitentiary
with the best results win.