'HARM REDUCTION,' NEEDLE EXCHANGE DON'T WORK, EXPERTS SAY

Beat cops on East Hastings, a senior RCMP drug officer who has studied
European drug experiments, and an ex-junkie who runs successful treatment
programs all agree.

Needle exchange programs, injection sites and other "harm reduction"
strategies that cater to addicts are a failure.

Vancouver Police constables Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton, whose video
Through a Blue Lens brought the "Pain and Hastings" underworld to national
attention, brought their latest mean-streets movie, Flipping the World, to
Maple Ridge Wednesday. They were part of a drug abuse prevention forum
organized by the two local Rotary Clubs. Other guests included Staff Sgt.
Chuck Doucette, provincial drug coordinator for the RCMP's E Division
headquarters, and Billy Weselowski of Innervisions treatment centres.

Those with day-to-day experience of the carnage caused by heroin, cocaine
and speed addiction were unanimous in condemning any program that
facilitates drug use with equipment, supervised sites or providing the
drugs themselves.

In a lively presentation that had the audience laughing and clapping one
moment and gasping at candid images of desperate junkies the next, speakers
debunked the suggestion that Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside is
made better by harm reduction efforts. Arsenault noted that his and
Hinton's views were personal, and they were not speaking on behalf of the
Vancouver Police.

Police say "safe injection site" is a misnomer, because they are anything
but safe as long as addicts are still using street drugs.

"They need the cure, not the poison," Weselowski said. "Is that so hard to
understand?"

Doucette said proponents of the needle exchange don't even try to argue
they are lowering HIV and Hepatitis C infection rates, preferring to say
rates would be even higher without a steady supply of clean needles. Yet
the infection rate on the Downtown Eastside is now among the highest in any
North American community.

Doucette said he visited the supervised injection site experiment in
Frankfurt, Germany, which has been held up as a model of progressive,
modern harm reduction.

"You would swear you were walking in the Downtown Eastside," Doucette said,
adding that Frankfurt did manage a reduction in overdose deaths, but that
was more likely from pushing addicts out of drug-hangout parks.

Councillor Craig Speirs, a panelist, found little support for his
suggestion that marijuana should be decriminalized. Experts agreed that the
best strategies are those that keep young people away from drugs, and
provide effective intervention for addicts.