From ai256@chebucto.ns.ca Tue Aug 04 21:42:48 1998
Newsgroups: usenet.alt.law-enforcement,usenet.talk.politics.drugs,usenet.alt.politics.marijuana
Subject: Canadian Govt to OK Heroin Prescription
From: ai256@chebucto.ns.ca (Chris Donald)
Date: 4 Aug 1998 17:42:48 GMT
2 Articles:
Subj: Canada: Time To Inject A Little Common Sense
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n639.a04.html
Source: Edmonton Sun (Canada)
Contact: sun.letters@ccinet.ab.ca
Website: http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonSun/
Pubdate: August 1, 1998
Author: MINDELLE JACOBS
TIME TO INJECT A LITTLE COMMON SENSE
The hang-'em-high fringe is probably quivering with indignation but it seems Canada and the U.S. are finally acknowledging their astronomically expensive war on drugs has flopped.
The same day the Vancouver police chief declared defeat in the battle against illicit drugs, a top Health Canada official said Ottawa is prepared to OK clinical trials in which heroin is prescribed to addicts.
"There is a need for research in this area," said Bruce Rowsell, director of the Bureau of Drug Surveillance, which has responsibility to approve heroin-maintenance programs.
Once the research plan for a hospital-based trial meets the necessary criteria, "there is the possibility of it going ahead," he said.
Even the U.S., despite pockets of resistance from groups which would rather see addicts locked up in jail - where they can get more drugs and contract HIV - is planning to prescribe heroin to users under carefully supervised conditions.
[continues: 75 lines]
full text at: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n639.a04.html
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Subj: Canada: British Columbia Seeks New Ways To Battle Drugs
From: Patrick Henry (resist_tyranny@mapinc.org)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 07:04:49 -0500
Size: 68 lines 3054 bytes
File: v98.n634.a08
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n634.a08.html
Source: Reuters
Pubdate: Wed, 29 Jul 1998
BRITISH COLUMBIA SEEKS NEW WAYS TO BATTLE DRUGS
VANCOUVER (Reuters)- If officials needed evidence to support claims the fight against drugs in western Canada's largest city was in trouble they could find it Wednesday on a downtown Vancouver street.
A drug addict witnessed by a Reuters photographer calmly pulled down her pants and planted an injection needle in her leg as cars and pedestrians passed by seemly oblivious to the scene.
Vancouver Police Chief Bruce Chambers is among those support for plan to overhaul British Columbia's anti-drug strategy that emphasizes treatment and could eventually include free prescription heroin for some addicts.
``If were' going to address this problem we need adequate resources. The business of law enforcement to drugs will continue, but we need a balanced approach,'' Chambers said a day after the proposal was unveiled.
Other officials went even farther on Tuesday, with some declaring as the plan was unveiled that the current war on drugs was lost.
The plan was proposed by British Columbia's top medical officials as part of a broad strategy to fight a drug problem that is among the worst in Canada with a death toll that could surpass an addict every day.
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