I do not live in Vancouver but have plenty of friends who have battled heroin use and addiction. I believe had my best friend not been alone shooting up she would still be alive today. While none of these people fit the profile of "street junkie" some went through of the degrading behaviors associated with the procurement and use of drugs. The older I get the sadder I feel about it all. I have spent some time researching both sides of the issue of dealing with the drug problem. It seems to break down into two paradigms which I'll make very black and white.

Classic drug paradigm: tough love,

misery, sin and suffering leads to redemption,

only when negative consequences associated outweigh or are realized by drug user will drug user stop,

users misery and death provides deterrent to people considering drugs.

Harm reduction paradigm: Stop death and disease, and help users find treatment. Awknowledge that only user can make choice to stop but offer steps to better life. Approaching as health problem takes away romantic self destruction myths.

There are strengths and drawbacks to both. But the old school approach it seems has been given more than enough time to be tested and is mostly ineffective alone. Here in the US we have the highest prison population (both raw and per capita) on the planet thanks to our drug war. Jail is a good place to find and use drugs. It is still an enablement of drug use and is very costly to the taxpayer to house and feed the user (or ex-user) for often long periods of time. Violent criminals belong in jail but most drug offenders are not.

Opponents to needle programs fail to see that the motivation is not for the paranelphlia but for the drug. A health program is not an enticing message to prospective users. A needle is still a needle even if it's clean and who likes needles espicially among kids or teens? The corpses on the streets in Vancouver didn't seem to be a very good detterent if there were simply more and more of them. Users have friends and families as well who have to live on both mourning and in shame that drugs deaths produce. HIV is not an quick death sentence anymore neither is Hep C which is good but these facts strengthen the prevention arguement even further since long term treatment is extremely costly. The other story left out is that users can and do spread the diseases to non users. The spread of disease is bad for all of us.

The citizens of Vancouver have the right to their property and their safety. Users need to be accountable for their actions. The money saved from health care costs can be used for law enforcement to protect citizens from theft and assault by users. InSite is not needle park it is a controlled environment with no dealing permitted. Dealing nearyby does complicate the matter, cops turning a blind eye raises problematic issues regarding legalization itself.

It does not address how users can affort their addiction which seems to be responsable for a lot crime in Vancouver. But clean needles and a place to inject are not get out of jail free cards.

Users that come to InSite are taking steps towards being proper citizens. By choosing to go there they are taking partial responsibility for their own health. At the end of the day it is the users decision to stop. Being an addict is a hell often within itself. We choose as a society how we want users to effect the rest of us reducing disease and death is a good start. I hope Vancouver provides a model of success for harm reduction approaches as people are still arrested in the US for destributing clean needles.

I recently left Vancouver after 11 years, my mother and sister still live there and in many ways I still think of the city as my home.

Crime, poverty and addiction are shocking and sad, particularly when juxtaposed against the natural beauty and cosmopolitan culture in Van.

Make no mistake, crime is out of hand all across the lower mainland and it is getting worse. I don't think that anyone in Vancouver doubts that when your apartment gets ransacked or your car window is smashed and the contents stolen that drugs are the motivation. It used to be that needles were only found in places like downtowns Blood Alley (yes, that is a real place). My sister lives in a trendy Urban area outside of the downtown core. While on the phone with her last week she looked over her balcony to see the contents of a purse scattered in the alley below. Due to the used needles in the pile we weren't sure if there had been a robbery or if a junkie had simply lost their possessions along the way. She wondered if she should clean it all up and I advised her not to, I know someone who was stuck with a dirty needle while trying to help once. We ended up hoping that the staff of the doctors office on the main floor would take care of it because they have sharp boxes.

It seems that the safe injection site has done some good. I know that I was all for it when I lived there. I'm glad that fewer addicts are dying in the streets, that the spread of infectious diseases has been positively impacted and that rehab is a real and promoted option. But this isn't nearly enough. Vancouver is trying but it needs to do more, I just think that the world is at a loss for realistic, financially viable solutions to this immense problem.

I was back home last month for a visit after being away for over a year. Standing outside a gastown bar I was approached by a trio of ghostly addicts with their hands out for money. My companions politely declined and turned away, the same reaction I used to have. I handed out the cigarettes I'd purchased for the night and wished them luck just before the doormen ushered them back out into the street.

Jayne