Vancouvers Saving The Addicts
“Vancouver’s program Insite isn’t treating the users addiction it is actually sustaining it.”
To many the idea of giving heroin addicts clean needles, medical supervision and free heroin for treatment is down right idiotic. How could someone possibly be treated for drugs if they are still using? In Ernest Drucker’s article, “Insite: Canada’s landmark safe injecting program at risk” he claims as to why the program is an asset not only towards helping treat the users addiction but also to the city of Vancouver.
Drucker gives us some research findings by the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and published in lead- ing peer-reviewed journals. Their finding are:
•” InSite is leading to increased admissions to local detoxi- fication programs and addiction treatment” (Drucker).
• “InSite has not led to an increase in drug-related crime, rates of arrest for drug trafficking, assaults and robbery were similar after the facility’s opening, and rates of vehi- cle break-ins/theft declined significantly” (Drucker).
• “InSite has reduced the number of people injecting in public and the amount of injection-related litter in the downtown eastside” (Drucker).
• “InSite is attracting the highest-risk users – those more likely to be vulnerable to HIV infection and overdose, and who were contributing to problems of public drug use and unsafe syringe disposal” (Drucker).
• “InSite has reduced overall rates of needle sharing in the community, and among those who used the supervised injection site for some, most or all of their injections, 70% were less likely to report syringe sharing” (Drucker).
• “InSite is not increasing rates of relapse among former drug users, nor is it a negative influence on those seeking to stop drug use” (Drucker)
“Since it came into being, Insite has reached over 7200 high risk injection drug users and decreased public injection, reduced needle sharing, prevented bacterial infections and overdose deaths and also increased the use of withdrawal management.” (Drucker). Insite has shown some very positive data and isn’t as detrimental as it seems. They help better both the users and the city of Vancouver.
Work Cited
Drucker, Ernest. Insite: Canada’s Landmark Safe Injecting Program at Risk. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Harm Reduction Journal, 9 Aug. 2006. Web. <http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1477-7517-3-24.pdf>.
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