OTTAWA'S CRACK PIPE PROGRAM IS NEEDED

Maybe it was the pressure of those Sandy Hill residents wielding
placards, but city council should have stopped to think for a minute
before the decision was made to scrap the city's two-year-old crack
pipe program.

Argue all you want about whether taxpayer dollars should be funding a
program that allows drug use to continue, but this is a public health
issue. Yes, a study from the University of Ottawa has shown an
increase in crack use since the program began, but listen also to the
city's own medical officer of health who says the program prevented
up to 12 people a year from contracting HIV.

The debate isn't unlike that in Vancouver over its safe-injection
site -- Insite. It's no secret the Harper government has questioned
the program and continues to review data before its permit to operate
expires at the end of this year. But studies have shown the site and
its programs have led to a 30% increase in the use of detoxification
programs. This is good news.

There is no question Ottawa needs its own drug treatment facility,
and Mayor Larry O'Brien and Police Chief Vernon White are right to
lobby for that to happen. But without that here right now, we need
harm reduction programs like the crack pipe program that address the
immediate public health impacts of crack cocaine use. With proper
programming we can start down that path, following in the footsteps
of Insite's success in getting people into detoxification programs.

The crack pipe program cost $8,000 a year. Treating one person
infected with HIV costs about $600,000. Without trivializing the
disease and making this an argument about numbers, there is financial
reasoning to keep the program, although the $500,000 for a proposed
review to determine its effectiveness is questionable.

But the human face of this fight is what matters most. HIV/AIDS can
be managed but cannot be cured. If we can keep one person from
acquiring the virus, isn't that what we should be doing?