BAN ON HARM REDUCTION MAY BE BAD NEWS FOR ADDICTS

Abbotsford city councillors declared the city a harm reduction free zone
Monday afternoon.

After hearing Langley-Abbotsford MP Randy White rail against harm reduction
strategies in dealing with addicts, council members voted unanimously to
declare the city "unequivocally opposed" to safe injection sites, needle
exchanges, free standing methadone clinics and mobile clinics.

A current methadone clinic on Hazel Street will be 'grandfathered' in, but
no new clinics will be permitted to open, said Mayor Mary Reeves.

Safe injection sites and needle exchanges will only draw in addicts from
elsewhere, she said, which is why communities such as Vancouver are
pressuring neighbouring jurisdictions to also use harm reduction tactics.

Rather than funding these harm reduction programs, the province should fund
detoxification and treatment facilities.

"It's evident there's not a single place for [addicts] to go to [in
Abbotsford for detox.] Let's go down the road that has had some measure of
success," she said.

Reeves said in part the intent of the motion is to send a message to the
upper levels of government that they should spend more money on
detoxification and treatment sites, rather than on harm reduction programs.

The city's motion will go to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the Lower
Mainland Municipal, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the
Fraser Health Authority, Reeves said. She hopes the message will then be
sent to Victoria and Ottawa.

However not everyone in the community supports the city's declaration.

"I think it's a terrible mistake," said Gloria Wolfson, the director of the
school of social work and human services at the University College of the
Fraser Valley.

She dismisses White's suggestion that harm reduction programs are primarily
supported by people whose livelihood depends on providing services to addicts.

Wolfson, whose involvement in treating drug addiction goes back to the
1970s, said research shows harm reduction options net more addicts than
abstinence.

"Many people who start with harm reduction go onto abstinence. No one's
telling [addicts] to keep on using. We need a wide range of treatment
options that includes abstinence and that includes harm reduction," Wolfson
said.

However, if users think their only option is abstinence, chances are
they'll keep using, she said.

Charlaine Avery, director of Abbotsford Addictions Centre, was also
disappointed by city council's stand.

"It's very frustrating. I think it's premature to make that decision," she
said, adding city councillors should have first talked to local
professionals to get balanced, informed information from counselling and
medical professionals on addiction treatment.

"Harm reduction keeps people alive long enough for them to change," Avery
said. Discouraging methadone clinics is akin to discouraging treatment for
other illness, she suggested.

"Do they want a diabetic to not use insulin?" she said. The free-standing
clinics can play an important role for people who have no doctors, she
said, pointing out that she knows of just four Abbotsford physicians
authorized to prescribe methadone and they aren't taking new patients.

Wolfson notes that harm reduction strategies such as needle exchanges are
officially supported by the provincial government and were endorsed by the
parliamentary committee on which White sat.

White wants to push an abstinence program he recently went to investigate
in a Mexican prison, where he says there is a 60 per cent success rate.
He'll be returning to the facility to bring back information to convince
his federal colleagues to include the approach as a viable strategy in Canada.

"You have to forgive [the Liberals], they know not what they are doing," he
said.

He argues that the "harm reduction" is easier and cheaper to implement and
is supported by service providers in the "industry."

White said Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, a former RCMP officer and B.C.
coroner was "full of hogwash" when he said harm reduction strategies have
positive impacts on communities.

He said the harm reduction programs had failed when they implemented in
Frankfurt and Zurich.

"What I saw was disgusting, it was human carnage" outside safe injections
sites White saw during a European tour last year.