Wednesday 23 May 2012

Who is involved?

The Addicts

                                                                              Residents of the Downtown Eastside


Over 12,000 unique people visit Insite annually. Half of these people are either homeless, living in shelters or have serious mental health issues. Also, about 17% of the 12,000 are aboriginal. These addicts have been using for a long time and tend to be older and usually Insite is the only way for them to connect to health care services.


The Health Care Providers

 At Insite, there are health care and social workers to provide assistance to their clients so as to develop close relationships with them and help them pursue detox and addiction treatment services. It is operated under Vancouver Coastal Health. By combining community and health services, they provide great support for users. 


The Federal Government

The Federal Government let Insite operate under a three year exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for scientific and research purposes as a response to the absurd number of people afflicted by HIV/AIDS in the community. When the time for the exemption to end came, local supporters of Insite wanted it to be declared a provincial issue rather than federal. The federal government was against a permanent exemption for Insite due to the fact that the government should not fund the facilitating of drug use and it would be better spent on other services. Furthermore, the federal government should have the only power over drug regulations as provincial control would cause fragmented regulations across Canada. After many appeals from the Attorney General, the issue went to the Supreme Court. There, it was decided that Insite would operate under a permanent constitutional exemption ensuring that no more legal hassles would come towards Insite's way.


                                                                               Poster put up on Insite's facilities



The Taxpayers

Insite's operational budget was $2,969,440 in 2010-2011. With taxpayers concerned that their money is essentially going to the hands of drug users, the money issue is the biggest one against Insite. Yet, the health care costs of providing emergency care for drug users for when they may overdose or need major surgery or plastic surgery directly due to their drug use, Insite tackles these issues before they become a burden for taxpayers. Providing clean needles and supervision so that users may not harm themselves seriously, it becomes clear that what Insite does is cost beneficial. With the cost benefit ratio being 1:5.12, Insite is clearly a good thing. The only shame is that money was wasted on lawyers because of Insite's convulated legal issues when the money could have easily been used to provide care for their clients.

2 comments:

  1. I remember you mentioning the amount of overdoses Insite has reduced in your first post. I would be interested to know how many addicts have gone into treatment and/or recovered because of Insite's services. It seems like recovery is their end goal and I wonder what kind of progress they are making on that. I was surprised to learn how cost effective Insite is. Given the debate that happened last year about keeping Insite open I was surprised by the numbers, especially the cost to benefit ratio. Its unfortunate that the government threatened to shut down Insite and I'm glad to hear that it will keep running. I wonder if this means we will be seeing more safe injection sites opening across the country.

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  2. It's hard to find numbers on that sort of thing since there's no way to know if someone has relapsed after seeking recovery. I hope this link might answer that question though:
    http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/research/supporting_research/user_statistics
    As for more opening up in Canada I recall coming across an article in my research talking about how cities like Toronto and Montreal want to open up their own yet overcoming the legal boundaries the Federal government has in place might hinder this from happening.

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