DRUG DEATHS SHOULD BE LOOKED INTO

To the editor:

Allen Garr's article "Progress made in drug policy" (March 16) does an
excellent job of summarizing some of the key points in the drug debate
since the needle exchange opened in 1989.

However, we should also be reminded of the inaction of the different
levels of government that caused this issue to move so slowly from
1996, when the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board declared an HIV
epidemic and a public health emergency the following year.

All three levels of government in the years between 1996 and 2001
showed a dereliction of duty, and the media, in the early days of this
debate, displayed a rather offensive view of the whole issue.

At that time, we made a choice as a community that human beings
afflicted with drug addiction and mental health issues were disposable
and that they did not have equal rights to a medicare system that we
as Canadians flaunted as the envy of the world. We all looked the
other way when it mattered as a human rights catastrophe unfolded in
our own city.

The attitudes that allowed the most vulnerable human beings to die
still exist in our communities today. That is why over 2,000 people
have overdosed since 1990 in B.C.

We should be proud that we have chosen a different path in dealing
with the drug issue the past few years. But we should also be holding
a public inquiry to see why these preventable deaths were allowed to
continue and why our public agencies were so slow to respond. It was
not that long ago that in the middle of a public health emergency,
city hall was holding back development permits for health facilities.

Am Johal, Civil Society Development Project

Vancouver