I was asked recently to write a short piece for ROGERS HEALTH as a counterpoint to a nurse who is in favor of Insite.
This is my submission:
Would you knowingly cross the street to give a drunk a clean shot glass? If you knew that your teenage daughter was self-mutilating, would you sharpen her razors for her?
Then, what human impulse would propel you to give a heroin addict a so-called “safe” place to continue his life in hell?
“Insite,” the safe injection Ground Zero in Vancouver’s disastrous Downtown East Side, has now been cleared by a Supreme Court decision to continue its deeply misguided mission. This ruling is based on bad science and very bad public policy.
Understand the Mechanics of Addiction. Drug addicts want more. They don’t covet more library cards, children, bicycles, digital SLR’s, bridge games or tennis partners. They want more drugs. They don’t crave relationships, enterprise or engagements. They want more drugs. Dope fiends shoot dope. Drunks drink. Why is this so difficult to accept? So, go ahead. Give them a clean, well lighted place in which to maintain their dependence and misery. At 10 am, Jake will avail himself of your wooly-headed kindness (the kindness that kills). And at 2:15, he will return to the back alley where he shoots up every day with his crew, using dirty needles and tainted waters in the only camaraderie he understands. Ask any cop on the beat and he or she will confirm this dark reality. Yes, the Vancouver Police Department supports Insite, but that is a political position and has nothing to do with what any member of the force really thinks.
Understand also that the Supreme Court decision and all the editorials that have fallen into line with it are based on a study published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet. There are two small problems with that study. The first is that it was created and managed by the very people who originated the Insite program. That’s not how science works. In legitimate science, we examine what is. We do not try to prove something we want to promote. That study has since been repudiated by a cleaner study by other scientists who have pointed out that overdose deaths have in fact increased since the arrival of Insite, not decreased as reported in the tainted report. The claim that Insite saves lives is false.
As for bad public policy, look at the way we spend our tax dollars. I know many treatment programs that daily send former addicts back into the community as clean and sober citizens. One typical program has an annual budget on $6 Million for a resident client population of 136 people.
Insite produces no clean and sober citizens and it costs us more than $3 Million a year. Do the math.
It is not popular these days to speak of morality or ethics.
However, it is important to remind ourselves that addiction issues are about human dignity. They are about families and pain and criminality and dishonor.
It is more humane and compassionate to help one addict recover than to enable ten addicts in their sad enslavement to stupidity.
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David Berner is the Executive Director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, He started the first residential treatment program for addicts in Canada in 1967. The program continues to thrive.
