'HARM REDUCTION' RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERN MP WHITE

A parliamentary committee's endorsement of safe injection sites for drug
addicts handcuffs police, places addicts above the law and aggravates
addiction to illicit drugs, says Randy White, the Canadian Alliance MP for
Langley-Abbotsford.

Ironically, it was White who established the all-party Special
Parliamentary Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, which released its
report containing 40 wide-reaching recommendations on Monday.

More than half a dozen deal with the topic of "harm reduction" through the
establishment in major cities of needle exchange programs, safe injection
sites and heroin maintenance programs.

But White said that he has seen firsthand that harm reduction is, in
reality, harm extension.

"Why are they promoting programs that will keep addicts on drugs, instead
of programs that will help with detox and rehabilitation?" he asked.

Safe injection sites "will compound chemical dependency to dangerous and
illicit drugs over a much longer period of time," White said. The committee
recommended patterning the sites, including one in Vancouver, on those
which White visited in Europe.

He said that the quality of drugs used is not checked, and for blocks
around the sites there is "human carnage . . . and a substantial gathering
of addicts and pushers in the areas where trafficking and using were
reluctantly permitted."

He said that it makes matters worse that the committee "recommended
changing the laws in order to further handcuff police from providing any
level of drug enforcement."

In an interview last week with MetroValley News (reported below), White
said that it is a matter of "whether we have the social conscience to put
these people where they can be helped. It's not easy but accommodating
their drug use is not helping them."

But White does like several of the committee's recommendations,
particularly the creation of a national drug commissioner, drug-use surveys
conducted across the country, increased funding for the Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse, and more study of prescription drug abuse.

As well, White welcomes recommendations to seize the property of drug
dealers and putting the proceeds into community-based drug programs, and
converting two prisons into drug treatment facilities for inmates.