HOUSING NEEDED TO REDUCE HARM CAUSED BY DRUG USE

Expert tells symposium nation's harm-reduction strategy has
deteriorated under Tories

The keynote speaker at Monday's harm-reduction symposium in Nanaimo
bolstered two Nanaimo city councillors' conviction that low-barrier
housing is essential to help people overcome their addictions.

Walter Cavalieri, founder of Toronto's harm-reduction task force and
the Canadian Harm Reduction Network has for more than 20 years been
actively engaged in harm reduction programs and delivery.

During his address before doctors, nurses, outreach workers and former
addicts at the Coast Bastion Inn, Cavalieri said access to low-barrier
housing gets people off the street and public fears that intravenous
drug users will leave used needles around a neighbourhood are unfounded.

He said needle exchange programs, clean crack pipe distribution
programs, condoms and other harm-reduction strategies work. It's why
more and more countries are "moving toward harm reduction and away
from the criminalization of drug use."

Unfortunately Canada, "which used to be a beacon of light when it came
to harm reduction" has bought into the American war on drugs, which
has proved unsuccessful.

Housing is essential to keep drug users healthy and sane, Cavalieri
said in support of low-barrier housing projects.

"If somebody is going to use intravenous drugs, they will use them in
their own homes."

Those who oppose housing and other harm-reduction strategies for drug
users and alcoholics aren't thinking about the money these strategies
save the public health system.

"It's a form of NIMBYism but I don't believe it's malevolence," said
Cavalieri.

Coun. Diana Johnstone agreed.

"People aren't going to get well living on the street," Johnstone
said.

"So, yes of course, we agree with what he is saying," she said nodding
toward Fred Pattje, the other Nanaimo city councillor in the crowd.

A number of residents in the hospital area are opposed to city
council's decision to place a

30-unit, low-barrier housing project at the corner of Dufferin
Crescent and Boundary Avenue. They fear an increase in crime if the
city persists in its plan.

Pattje said he has been talking to members of the Hospital Area
Neighbourhood Association but they insist on smaller housing projects
that they believe should be spread throughout the city.

It's an issue officials can't control because all the city can
contribute to housing projects like the one proposed for the hospital
area is land, while the province supplies the money.

Cavalieri was also critical of the federal government's decision to
spend "billions" on new prisons and its insistence that abstinence is
the only way drug users can get healthy.