No to mandatory drug treatment: Operators of Insite

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) –  The group that runs Vancouver’s supervised injection site says mandatory drug treatment doesn’t really work. This comes after a former Downtown Eastside police officer suggested it at the Missing Women Inquiry on Monday.

Doug Mackay-Dunn, now a North Vancouver District councilor told the inquiry mandatory long-term drug treatment programs must be running to save people from the scourge of addiction and some sex trade workers are so “out of it” they should be involuntarily committed to hospital to get help.

Mark Townsend with the Portland Hotel Society, which runs Insite, the supervised injection site on East Hastings Street, says the suggestion sounds tantalizing.

“But unfortunately most of the evidence says that [mandatory drug treatment] doesn’t really work, and there’s been quite extensive studies of forced treatment in prisons,” says Townsend. “If you look over a long period of time, people go back to the behaviour because you really need that change in your soul.”
    
“Just in my own personal life, I’ve tried to stop my partner smoking.  Trust me, I’ve tried the equivalent of forced treatment and it’s failed,” Townsend added.

Townsend says he doesn’t agree with some former officers’ claims the Downtown Eastside is worse than ever, saying crime has dropped and HIV and Hepatitis rates have also gone down.

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