SPARE CHANGE FOUNDER STILL QUESTIONING HARM-REDUCTION

To the editor:

Thanks to Sean Condon for his thoughtful article about street
newspapers and their dwindling readership in Vancouver ("Hard news,"
Feb. 13).

As the founder and editor of Spare Change, I must confess that I shut
the paper down because it was too successful. Vendors made too much
money and did not always spend it wisely. Over time I became convinced
that I was hurting them more than I was helping.

In many ways, that discovery mirrors the problems facing all social
service providers. Detox and rehab services must be part of any
successful recovery program. Reading current issues of the Courier I
note with regret that drug usage on the streets of Vancouver seems to
be increasing.

This is hardly a surprise. While access to drugs and alcohol is easy,
recovery from addiction is almost impossible.

For more than a decade, Vancouver's health and social services have
been based on a "harm reduction" model, originated on the premise that
prevention of HIV is a prime public health priority. This
well-intended policy requires some review and updating.

HIV is transmitted from the Downtown Eastside via drug-addicted sex
workers to their sex addicted, suburban-based customers. Passing out
free needles to drug-addicted individuals was supposed to stop the
spread of HIV from the inner city. One unfortunate side effect has
been the death by overdose of thousands of addicts, an alarming
statistic that calls into question what harm is being reduced and
whose health is really at risk.

Spare Change performed a vital community service by having the courage
to call into question many public policies. One question repeatedly
asked, and never answered, bears repeating today: Since funding is
predicated on the number of clients served, what possible incentive is
there for social service providers to reduce the number of their
clients? What incentives and opportunities are there for addicts
wishing to recover?

Here in San Francisco, the mayor has just outraged the city's social
service activists by pulling welfare cheques for street-involved
individuals and replacing them with housing, detox and counselling. So
far the new policy seems to be working, perhaps not to the
satisfaction of social service providers who are losing clients, but
the street people and taxpayers are happy and that's certainly a change.

If hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on any program,
occasionally it's worthwhile to quantify results. Sometimes its
necessary to tabulate the true cost of established policies and go in
a more progressive direction.

Michael McCarthy

San Francisco