May 30, 2011
Letter to the Editor
The National Post
300 – 1450 Don Mills Road
Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3R5
Fax 416-383-2305
Dear Sir:
Thomas Kerr, author of the article on the Vancouver Drug Injection facility (May 30, 2011) is not an objective observer of the site.
He lobbied for the establishment of the drug injection site a decade ago, and he and his co-researchers have published over two dozen studies on the facility – all positive. It is no coincidence that all these studies have been peer reviewed only by those (as is Mr. Kerr) who support a harm reduction policy i.e. a policy that presupposes that the addict will continue to use drugs and the only solution is to reduce the “harm” to the drug addict. Significantly, Mr. Kerr and his co-researchers have refused to release any data to other researchers so that they can be verified.
Most recently, Mr. Kerr and his co-researchers released a study strategically timed during the week that the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments on the validity of the site. In this study, it was stated, that the researchers had observed that overdose deaths in the immediate area of the site, had declined by 35% since it opened in 2003. However, the federal government’s Expert Advisory Committee which released a report on the site in March 2008 found that only 5% of the drug addicts in the area used the drug injection site. The claim that Insite resulted in a 35% decrease in overdose deaths, in the area is, therefore, questionable.
In his article. Mr. Kerr attempts to discredit the annual reports of the Government of British Columbia Selected Vital Statistics and Health Status Indicators, which state that the drug induced deaths have increased each year in the site area (with one exception) since the site opened in 2003 by claiming that many of these deaths surrounding Insite were from other causes. This is not so. The B.C. government report definitively states that the deaths are from drug overdose in the area.
Mr. Kerr also attempts in his article to discredit a study by Dr. Colin Mangham who has raised concerns about the methodological deficiencies in Mr. Kerr’s studies.
Mr. Kerr, however, ignores the fact that other researchers have also questioned his studies including Dr. Garth Davies, from Simon Fraser University. Other studies, for example, from the University of Glasgow, have also questioned the validity of drug injection sites. It is with good reason, that two dozen major European cities who have experimented with drug injection sites, signed a declaration in 1994 opposing such sites and want them permanently banned.
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Well off individuals such are airline pilots, doctors and lawyers, can afford to receive treatment for their addiction. The drug injection site, however, serves to shuffle the poor off to its premises so that they increase the injection of drugs in their bodies which leads only to their inevitable and terrifying deaths. The injection site refers only 3% of its users for treatment.
Treatment is the only solution to drug addiction. Surely, as a civilized society, we can offer this to our suffering drug addicts. They are human beings who deserve better than a drug injection site, supported, not for compassionate reasons, but for reasons of personal, professional or financial bias for its continuation.
Yours truly,
C. Gwendolyn Landolt
President, Drug Prevention Network of Canada
