FROM DPNC BOARD MEMBER, ANDY BIGRAS:
Here’s the response to my letter direct from the director of Insite. He is playing games with what I said. The evidence I was referring to was never presented which means they didn’t miss it, they never had it presented. His statistics are as mis-informing.
Numbers show Insite works
BY RUSSELL MAYNARD, OTTAWA CITIZENOCTOBER 12, 2011 3:10 AM
Re: Nothing safe about injecting drugs, Oct. 8.
Letter-writer Andre Bigras tries to leave the reader with the impression that three Supreme Courts (a total of 13 Supreme Court judges) could not adjudicate the copious research on Insite correctly.
Bigras is with the Drug Prevention Network of Canada (DPNC). The DPNC’s website tells readers that one of those key pieces of evidence that the judges missed is that “The impartial federal government’s Expert Advisory Committee in its report in March 2008 concluded that the drug injection site, which costs three million dollars annually to operate, only (refers) three per cent of its attendees for treatment, the latter is the only way that an addict can regain his/her health and dignity and return to a normal life.”
If the DPNC had called me I would have clarified that three per cent was in the first couple of years of operation. That percentage has grown every single year of Insite’s operation. It is now approximately 30 per cent of the monthly visits to Insite. To clarify: close to 30 per cent of visits to Insite are to inquire, apply for, or access recovery services. Conversely, the number of people coming to Insite to use the injection services has dropped from approximately 90 per cent in 2004 to approximately 60 per cent now.
There is no other public health project in this country, on this continent, that even approaches that volume of referrals to recovery services. Insite works!
Russell Maynard,
Director, Insite Vancouver, B.C.
