STUDY TARGETS DRUG USE IN PRISON

Researcher Publishes Paper Suggesting Ways To Stop The Spread Of HIV/AIDS

VANCOUVER -- One inmate said he'd seen syringes go through the hands of 30
to 40 prisoners. Another told of watching 15 people get their fix using one
syringe -- each having no idea if the others had AIDS.

Researchers for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS who heard
stories like these have issued a call in a medical journal for pilot
projects, such as needle exchanges, to stop the flow of disease through
drug use in Canadian prisons.

Thomas Kerr co-wrote the comment piece in the British medical journal The
Lancet, published on-line yesterday and in print form today."Despite the
best efforts of prisons around the world, drug use occurs in prisons, no
doubt about it," Dr. Kerr said in an interview. "There are a lot of very
basic things we do in the community that aren't done in prisons. If people
don't have access to syringes, they'll resort to pretty terrible means."

Because testing for diseases is voluntary in prisons, Correctional Service
Canada can only estimate infection rates, and it suggests prisoners'
infection rate for HIV is 10 times higher than that of the regular
population. The hepatitis C infection rate is 30 times higher, it suggests.

In a study published this year, Dr. Kerr and his colleagues working on the
Vancouver Injection Drug User Study interviewed 26 male former inmates who
had used drugs in Canadian prisons. They found needles were not randomly
shared, but would circulate among social cliques or be "rented" out for
cigarettes, money or drugs.

"Rigs" are scarce, the study noted, so an addicted prisoner has little
choice but to share needles -- and an infected addict won't tell people for
fear of being excluded from the clique.

One former inmate, quoted anonymously in the study, said after finding he
was HIV-positive that he thought he became infected in prison.

"Guys don't say they're positive on the inside," he said. "Because they
don't want the guys to say, 'Well, you're not using the . . . rig because
you're HIV-positive.'

"I've run into so many guys [outside] that have sat there and said, well,
I've been positive for six years. And I look at them and say, 'Well, you
told me you were . . . negative in '98!' "

Bruce Bannerman, director of programs for the B.C. prison system, said
because of the risk of disease transfer, guards must constantly take
precautions against being pricked with needles hidden among personal items.

"We don't know if someone is infected, so we treat everyone as if they are
infected," he said.

Corrections Canada has some harm-reduction programs, including bleach kits
for sterilizing needles and a methadone program, said spokeswoman Christa
McGregor, and B.C. will soon have a pilot program for sterile tattoo equipment.

The agency is studying needle exchanges and has begun a pilot program
studying active needle exchanges in conjunction with the Public Health
Agency of Canada, sending people to Germany and Spain in September, with
results expected in March, Ms. McGregor said.

"Infectious disease in prison is a serious issue," she said. "It's a
public-health issue as well, because the majority of these offenders will
be eventually released in the community."

Giselle Dias, a policy analyst for Toronto-based Prisoners' HIV/AIDS
Support Action Network, said it's not surprising that addicted prisoners
will fashion rigs out of ballpoint pens, thereby exposing themselves to
hepatitis and AIDS.