Harm reduction programs more effective than police: study
Posted June 24, 2013 4:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Harm reduction and addiction treatments are proving more effective at getting people off drugs than law enforcement efforts.
A new study from the Urban Health Research Initiative at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS shows the war on drugs is failing in Vancouver.
Fewer people are using illicit drugs in Vancouver and study author Dr. Thomas Kerr says it’s clear programs like Insite are working and those programs have helped more people to get into detox and addiction programs.
“HIV infection rates have plummeted dramatically and this can only really be contributed to harm reduction programs like the needle exchange program.”
The study also found the federal government’s approach on drugs has had no impact at all on the price or availability of drugs.
“So on the one hand we have a public health response that has been very effective in reducing rates of infection and death and at the same time drug use is declining, yet the response that’s really rooted in enforcement has had virtually no impact.”
It looked at 15 years of data and found fewer people are injecting drugs and stopping their use all together because of those harm reduction services.
