February 9th, 2010, 8 Comments »
Last month, the federal government lost their appeal of a court ruling on Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site. There was hope among the site’s proponents that the Conservatives’ legal challenges might end there. Alas, our Prime Minister is keen to bring the case before the Supreme Court of Canada:
The case has raised important questions about the division of powers among federal and provincial governments that need answers, said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson on Parliament Hill Tuesday.
“The case we’ll be presenting before the court is to ask for clarification,” he said. “I think it is important to do that.” Nicholson pointed out that there was a dissenting opinion in the lower court ruling. “I think it is appropriate for me to seek leave to appeal,” he said.
What, I wonder, is our federal government justification for this ongoing lawsuit? As this great Slate profile puts it, the site’s efficacy has been demonstrated by “dozens of peer-reviewed articles…published in scientific journals like the Lancet, the American Journal of Public Health, and the New England Journal of Medicine“. Those publications describe how Insite has reduced public injections, behaviour like needle sharing that increases HIV transmission and increased adoption of addiction treatment programs. In 2009 alone, the centre oversaw over 700 daily visits, and handled 484 overdoses without a fatality.
It’s that rarest of success–a drug program that works effectively. It reduces harm, saves money and introduces addicts to treatment programs. I’m ashamed that my government so aggressively opposes this success that they want to litigate it out of existence. The ongoing legal action is absurd, and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Get Your Free Drugs Here
On a related note, I enjoyed the fourth part of the Slate profile of Vancouver’s drug problem. In it, writer Matthew Power discusses a more radical program that I’ve always thought made sense: free heroin for addicts. A trial has been run in Vancouver in recent years, and the results are pretty interesting:
Schecter found that 88 percent of the heroin maintenance group stayed on their course of treatment, versus 54 percent in the methadone group. Illegal activity in the heroin group was reduced 67 percent, versus 47.7 percent in the methadone group. Out of 89,000 injections, there were only 10 overdoses and no fatalities…Schecter claims opiate maintenance makes sense: An untreated heroin addict costs the state $45,000 a year in legal and medical bills; heroin maintenance costs $7,000. “Sure, it’s easy to say, ‘You’re giving heroin to junkies,’ ” Schecter says, but he witnessed the stabilization of the heroin group firsthand. “A subject told me ‘for the first time in 20 years I’m actually thinking about my life.’ That was the line that blew my mind,” he recalled. “They’re actually thinking about the future. Normally they’re thinking about eight hours.”
And, importantly, they’re not thinking about breaking into your house or car. Plus, by taking over the supply, you significantly reduce the much more serious crime of drug trafficking.
And the math is pretty compelling. 5447 unique individuals used Insite last year. Let’s imagine that we could convince just 1000 heroin addicts to accept drugs from the government instead of the street. We just saved ourselves $37 million. I wonder what Feds’ legal bill is up to on this case?
Our society probably isn’t ready for this approach yet, but I think it’s a sensible next step.
8 Comments »
May 28th, 2008, 9 Comments »
This morning Tom twittered about a recent decision by the BC Supreme Court on Insite, Vancouver’s controversial safe-injection site:
Supporters are pleased about a B.C. Supreme Court decision regarding Insite, a supervised safe-injection facility in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, while critics are disappointed the bigger issues remain unresolved.
In a 60-page ruling Tuesday, Justice Ian Pitfield gave Insite an exemption from Canada’s drug laws until the end of June 2009.
‘Critics’ is a bit generous, as the article only cites Vancouver police union president Tom Stamatakis. Apparently the Vancouver police department supports the project, but the union doesn’t.
Regardless of what you think about heroin addicts or the ‘war on drugs’, Insite makes so much sense. Let’s get callous for a second, and consider the savings in healthcare costs alone. There have been over 500 overdoses (PDF) over a two-year period at Insite (with zero fatalities). On sight site medical staff dealt with six in ten of those, and only one in ten required hospitalization. The cost of the facility over that period was $1 million. How many of those 450 overdose cases would otherwise have ended up in a costly hospital visit? And how much does each prevented fatality save the government?
Insite’s website cites (argh!) a whole suite of benefits (with references) to addicts, the community and the bottom line.
I looked, and couldn’t find any evidence-based criticisms of the facility. Instead, there’s just silly rhetoric from the moral high ground. When Insite opened, an official in the Bush administration called it ’state-sponsored suicide’. Insite just works. It’s a cost-effective, harm-reductive health facility. I’m glad that our provincial Supreme Court found in favour in project–I trust our federal government will see things the same way.
9 Comments »
March 13th, 2008, 8 Comments »
Living abroad teaches you a lot. It also teaches you how little you know, and forces you to re-examine long-held assumptions.
One of these assumptions is about poverty. My general assumption about poverty used to go like this:
Most people in the West are rich. Most people in the developing world are the suffering poor.
Broadly speaking, I perceived people as dirt poor, middle class or rich.
A few experiences have made me question these assumptions:
- Reading Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety, which postulates that our thinking about rich and poor changed with the rise of democracy and the Industrial Revolution.
- Listening to some BBC radio documentaries about people surviving (or not surviving) on a dollar a day.
- Living in Malta and Morocco, and seeing how the average person lives in these countries.
In rural Morocco or Malta, people don’t have much. They own their own small house. They might have some sheep or cows. In Morocco, they probably have a bike, and in Malta they have an old car. They almost definitely have a cell phone. They probably have a television, or know somebody who does. If they’re farmers, they have fields to tend. If they live in town, they might own a tiny shop.
Their basic needs are usually met, but they’re not driving a 2008 Mini Cooper and their kids aren’t playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl on their Wii.
I’ve been back in Vancouver for a few days now, and had fresh eyes for Vancouver’s homeless problem. I’ve seen the occasional person sleeping rough in a doorway, and addicts, dressed in filthy old clothes, wandering around like zombies. How much do these people have? The contents of their shopping cart?
We were walking around the old, nearly abandoned kasbah in Agdz. A few people still live there in crumbling adobe buildings, and they’re seriously poor. I gave this girl two dirhams–25 Canadian cents. That would buy two loaves of bread, or about a dozen oranges.
A young guy asked for me change on Granville Street the other day. I didn’t give him anything. I never do, because we give to the Union Gospel Mission every year instead (that’s an unexpected search result).
On Gozo, there were no beggars or homeless people. In Morocco, the only beggars were the very old (here’s one) and a couple of young kids. In Vancouver, they’re young men and women.
Who’s More Impoverished?
Who’s more impoverished? Before my year away, I’d have definitely picked the rural Moroccan. Now I’m not so sure.
The Moroccan lives among his peers who, more or less with the same level of wealth. The homeless Canadian lives among veritable towers of gold and conspicuous consumption, but can’t have any of it.
Who would I rather be? Again, I’m not sure.
I think the question I’m orbiting here is: who is happier? I’ve got not grounds to speculate, but I’m guessing it’s not the homeless Vancouverite. That leads to a bigger question: is it better to live simply and be happy?
At the moment, that’s all I’ve got. I’d like this to be a cohesive little essay featuring a parable and carefully-craft conclusion, but I haven’t worked it out yet. I clearly don’t know enough, or understand enough about the hands that these Moroccans, Maltese and Vancouverites have been dealt. As such, it’s just food for thought (that anybody can afford).
8 Comments »
May 25th, 2007, 1 Comment »
Well, it ain’t no Desktop Tower Defense (to which poor, unsuspecting Jeremy got addicted), but you may find you enjoy Juggler, a simple but tricky flash game. Work less, play more.
UPDATE: Er, whoops. Link included, so that you can actually play the game.
1 Comment »
