inSITE safer injection site under attack…

inSITE safer injection site under attack…

May 15, 2007, 6:17 pm
Filed under: Drug Politics

Vancouver’s safer injection site, inSITE and the philosophical/practical approach to drug users called “harm reduction” is under attack by a coordinated bunch of organizations under the auspicise of Drug Free America

A couple months back as supposed “independent” researcher published a report on inSITE entitled “A Critique of Canada’s INSITE Injection Site and its Parent Philosophy: Implications and Recommendations for Policy Planning” at the Institute on Global Drug Policy’s website

It turns out this Institute is nothing more than a front group for anti-harm reduction forces. As Peter McKnight wrote in an Op Ed piece in the Vancouver Sun:

The trouble, however, is that this most recent “study” isn’t, and the “journal” it was published in isn’t, either. Rather, the “journal” — which goes by the impressive name, The Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice — is a non-peer reviewed website registered to the Drug Free America Foundation, not a scientific or medical journal.

Unlike real journals, which contain real studies written by real scientists, this “journal” includes a total of seven articles over its two issues, and all of those articles are commentaries rather than scientific studies.

And as we all know, anyone today can start a website, slap some opinion pieces on it and call it a journal. But that doesn’t make it one, and it certainly doesn’t put it in the league of The Lancet or the New England Journal of Medicine.

Similarly, the “study,” by Colin Mangham, is an opinion piece funded by the RCMP — as if the force doesn’t have enough problems right now — not a scientific study. There are no hypotheses tested, no research design, no statistical analyses, only
a poorly written and poorly argued commentary on Insite.

This is no surprise, since Mangham is “director of research” for the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, a group of drug prohibitionists led by former Conservative MP Randy White, who praised Mangham’s “study” because its “balanced” — there’s that word again — reports about Insite.

You can find McKnight’s full Op Ed piece here

A simple webpage has been created to try and follow the links, and connect the dots, regarding this attack on inSITE. The inSITE Debate webpage is found here

Over 500 overdoses occurred in a two year period at inSITE with none resulting in a fatality.

Other research results show:

* 7,278 unique individuals registered at Insite
* Women made up 26 per cent of clients
* Aboriginal people made up 18 per cent of clients
* Heroin was used in 41 per cent of injections
* Cocaine was used in 27 per cent of injections
* Morphine was used in 12 per cent of injections
* 453 overdoses resulted in no fatalities
* 4,084 referrals were made with 40 per cent of them made to addiction counselling
* Referral to withdrawal management: 368
* Referral to methadone maintenance: 2 per week
* Daily average visits: 607
* Average number of visits per month, per person: 11
* Busiest day: May 25, 2005 (933 visits in 18 hours)
* Number of nursing care interventions: 6,227
* Number of nursing interventions for abscess care: 2,055

*All totals or averages are for the two-year period from April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2006.

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