A Safe Injection Site for London?

I noticed a story on the front page of the Freeps today. City staff has reported to the community and protective services committee that it would take five years and $15 million to address the growing drug problem in the city's core, with a safe injection site as part of that strategy.

The stated aim (according to the story) of the site would be to reduce the numbers of numbers of discarded needles downtown... Some might argue that the other benefits, such as access to clean injection equipment and a clean injection space, supervision by medical staff who can intervene in the event of an overdose, interaction between drug users and health care professionals helping to catch health problems earlier, access to treatment referrals and drug counselling, etc, are just as important.

Not surprisingly, Coun. Paul Van Meerbergen has come out against the idea. His position is that support for a safe-injection site would amount to "the government being complicit in the drug trade", saying that "For the government to be complicit in that kind of activity is wrong".
Personally, I find that to be one of the dumber things I've read in a long time... For example, does the presence of SHARPS containers (aka needle disposal boxes) in the washrooms of the library make the London Public Library complicit in the drug trade? or the SHARPS containers in the washrooms at my work for that matter?

Other suggestions from city staff include more shelter beds, more funding detoxification and treatment programs (which I can tell you is very badly needed... I usually find it very difficult to make referrals to withdrawal management, and 6-8 month waits for treatment aren't doing any one any good), more police patrolling downtown, improved access to needle exchange and needle drop boxes, earlier drug education in schools and overdose prevention campaigns.

CAPS is expected to decide whether or not to refer the matter to Council for consideration in the 2008 budget.

Back to the idea of a safe injection site in London... One of many major obstacles to it's implementation is the need for a operating exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate legally. The exemption would need to be issued by Health Canada. Unfortunately with the Harper Government's recent announcement of it's heavy-on-enforcement drug policy, the Conservative's scepticism towards Harm Reduction and the resistance to the renewal of Vancouver's Insite's exemption, the chances for a new exemption being issued in London seems slim.

To put the attitude of the Harper Government towards Harm Reduction into perspective, consider the words of Health Minister Tony Clement when he said "harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms. To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction.", or Harpers comments, "I remain a skeptic that you can tell people we won't stop the drug trade, we won't get you off drugs, we won't even send messages to discourage drug use, but somehow we will keep you addicted and yet reduce the harm just the same". This attitude doesn't only apply to the safe injection sites aspect of harm reduction, but also to other programs meant to reduce the dangers of drug use, such as the distribution of clean needles, safe inhalation kits, vein care and infection reduction supplies already in practice and showing positive results.

I'm wondering, How much interest would there be around organising around the issues of access to Harm Reduction and treatment to protect the gains already made and to push for things such as a Safe Injection Site? Sort of a 'London Harm Reduction Alliance'. Maybe a good place to start would be to encourage CAPS to recommend a broader harm reduction

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Mike.
"We only wear black, but that's just until something darker comes along..."
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