NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE

Editor, The News:

Re: Cops, ex-addicts aren't drug experts (letters, May 29)

Common sense dictates that a constant infusion of clean needles will
decrease the infection rate of communicable disease. It is a healthy choice
to use a fresh needle every time you inject your heroin or cocaine or
methamphetamine.

Alas, statistics show something alarming - the largest Canadian HIV
infection rate in the same area that has the highest distribution of new
needles. Why? Lifestyle patterns and habits of drug addicts are
unpredictable and their thinking is chaotic and paranoid. Their behavior is
criminal and dangerous.

This is not slander but truth. I know because I lived the lifestyle. I
befriended the lifestyle and the people whom these studies involve. I also
hold an engineering degree and have lived in Europe, Asia and North America
and currently work with the federal government.

Society needs to be careful of what it sows, because of what it will reap.
If you provide safe injection sites, they will come. If you provide free
needles, they will take them.

I tried to remember to use a clean needle every time I injected, but in
reality couldn't remember to put the cap back on after use. I used to sell
my needles to make money for my heroin (when I wasn't doing B&Es).

Make no mistake, the harm reduction model being advocated by many is meant
to reduce financial expenditure and wage ineffective war on crime. This has
very little to do with the well-being of addicts or society as a whole.

To anyone who disputes this, I would suggest you enroll yourself in the one
of the spearhead initiatives of the harm reduction model: substance abuse
management in which addiction is likened to an all-dressed pizza.

After all, what do the police or an ex-addict who happens to be the
executive director of a well-established, licensed, residential treatment
centre know about addiction in their own community?

Christopher Legault

Maple Ridge

Editor, The News:

The Vancouver Needle Exchange Program (NEP) is one of the largest in the
world - it has distributed over 1 million needles annually since 1988.

The HIV rates among participants in the program is higher than the HIV rate
among injecting drug users who do not participate.

The death rate due to illegal drugs in VCR has skyrocketed since 1988, the
year the NEP was introduced. In 1988, 18 deaths were attributed to drugs:
in 1993, 200 deaths were attributed to drugs. In March of 1998, the
provincial Coroner admitted to a delegation from the Executive Office of
the President, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy in
Washington, D.C., that at that time there were an average of 10 deaths per
week in Vancouver due to drugs -- mover 600 deaths province-wide in 1998,
mostly in Vancouver.

Vancouver is the most active Pacific port in North America, and with the
implementation of NAFTA, the Vancouver Port Police was disbanded.

The highest rates of property crime in Vancouver are within two blocks of
the needle exchange.

The average age of IV drug users has decreased in recent years.

There are almost no drug treatment beds in the criminal justice system.
Drug use is increasing because of the available supply of cheap drugs.
Currently, court-mandated treatment is not a reality.

Pro-Needle Exchange Program studies are unscientific reports which fail to
control for variables; fail to adequately study adverse effects, such as
the concomitant rise in community drug use; fail to compare results to
those of outreach/education and mandatory treatment programs; and fail to
adequately consider contradictory studies.

Success in AIDS reduction has been attributed to needles but is actually
due to the other components of needle exchange programs, such as
education/outreach, etc. A Chicago study show that seroconversion rates
fell from 8.4% to 2.4% (a 71% drop) in out-of-treatment addicts through
outreach/education alone with provision of needles. (Weibe, WL et al, J.
AIDS 12:282-289, 1996).

The National Research Council/Institute of Medicine (IM)report "Preventing
HIV Transmission: the Role of Sterile Needles and Bleach" (1995), also
fails to scientifically show that Needle Exchange Programs are safe and
effective. The media falsely portrayed this report as scientifically
proving that needle programs prevent AIDS without encouraging drug use.

Needle exchange programs encourage illegal drug use by flouting our
anti-drug laws. Addicts receiving needle hand-outs may be offered
treatment, but in BC there are almost no treatment beds available and the
majority refuse. In fact, addicts are lured away from treatment programs
through the provision of free needles. Giving free needles to an addict is
like giving an alcoholic a clean Scotch tumbler for every drink to prevent
meningitis or liver damage. Handing needles to addicts not only undermines
treatment programs, but also results in higher drug use, crime, and
prostitution which spreads HIV/AIDS. Pro-NEP studies downplay the fact that
HIV/AIDS is primarily a sexually-transmitted disease.

The term "harm reduction" is deliberately ambiguous. It should be used to
describe Canada's overall response to drugs only if it is used within
specific parameters - meaning "reducing the harms stemming from drug use."
Harm reduction" should not mean liberalization of drug laws or approval of
illegal drug use. Illegal drug use cannot be considered a positive,
sustainable or viable lifestyle.

Sweden, the one European country that harm reduction advocates take care
not to mention, offers a more useful drug policy template than do Holland,
Switzerland, or Germany. The Swedes, having tried a liberal approach to
drugs, learned from than experience and created a new, restrictive drug
policy based on a balance of supply and demand reduction. Swedish drug
policy now reads:

"A drug-free society is a high objective expressing society's attitude to
narcotic drugs. We do not accept the integration of narcotic drugs in
society, and our aim is a society in which drug use remains a marginal
phenomenon." and "The guiding principle of drug control measures is for the
aggregate efforts of the community to show, distinctly and unambiguously,
that all non-medical use of drugs is unacceptable."

We should confirm a commitment to do what it takes to help addicted persons
get off drugs and sufficiently rehabilitated to stay off. And finally we
should place our energies and emphasis on a preventive approach to
substance abuse.

Harm reduction as currently promoted is a half-hearted approach that will
accept defeat. Increasing help is better than decreasing harm. Pretending
that harmful activity will be reduced if we condone it under the law is
foolhardy and irresponsible.

Laurie Geschke

Maple Ridge