How Incarceration Fails As A Method Of Illicit Drug Control

Vancouver Injection Drug User Study (VIDUS) is a project that gives a prospective study and has over 1500 IDU 's enlisted to assist since 1996 and gathers data on drug use, health, sexual activity, etc. Some of the topics discussed included: prison culture, availability and price of drugs and equipment, drug use, VIDUS shows that the risk of HIV infection indicated that incarcerated injection drug users were associated with a greater risk of 2.7 times (Small, Kain, Laliberte, Schechter, O 'Shaughnessy & Spittal, 2005).

In the 1990’s there was an epidemic of HIV outbreaks in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Injection drug users were found to be the leading cause of this, and a public health emergency was declared (Fafard, 2012). The “mortality and morbidity” resulting from this increasing injection drug use became a major political issue. This resulted in the adoption of harm reduction by the government as one of their four pillars of their drug strategy (Fafard, 2012). Harm reduction “is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use” (Boyd, 2013). In September 2003 Insite, North Americas first harm reduction supervised injection site,

Due to the growing number of drug-related deaths and the failure of prohibition of drug use, activists believed that it was up to them to establish alternate measures of safety for illegal drug use (MacDonald, 2011). Safe injection sites were established to provide people who inject drugs with a clean injection environment, sterile injections, and with clean drug preparation tools such as cookers and water (Semaan et al, 2011). Safe injection sites also allow access for drug addicts to use the available health care and have medical supervision while taking the illegal substance (Lavoie, 2015). According to Semaan et al, the overall aim of safe injection sites is to “reduce public injection and the risk of infection with HIV, hepatitis C virus, injection-related bacterial infections, and drug overdose morality” (2011).

Most of the currently operating prison needle exchange programs around the world began with pilot studies and had systematic evaluations of their effects done after one or two years (Meulen & Ka Hon Chu, 2015). The framework of this pilot program is modeled based on these programs that have been successfully used in other countries. This pilot phase will be for a

Most people are under the impression that, since addicts are abusing drugs that they do not care about their health when they actually do. According to Jürgens, (Davies, 2004) “Drug users in fact do care about their health.” Prisoners even care about their health while using drugs in prison. (Davies, 2004) Prisoners understand and even see that benefits of having clean needles even though they are not supposed to be using drugs in

The idea of a drug free society is a joke. There’s no way for us to completly irradicate drug use, whether it be legal or illigal. A harm reduction approach is much more succesful in the long run at reducing the number of addicts and drug related deaths (Nadelmann). Over the past 10 year some of the more progressive countries around the world have made great strides in reducing the amount of deaths and diseases caused by heroin specifcally (Borden). Many of these harm reduction programs are still in their infancy but “It’s a cautious first step, but an urgently needen one” (Borden). Heroin related death and disease can be greatly reduced through the implementation of general drug reform laws as they pertain to heroin, making sterile needles

In March 2004, an 18-month study was developed to calculate the number of overdose events that occurred at Insite that could have been resulted to drug related complications, including death (Kerr et al., 2006a). Within the 18 months of the study, there was a total of 336 overdose events, a rate of 133 overdose events per 10000 injections at Insite (Kerr et al., 2006a). “None of the overdose events occurring at the [safe injection facility] resulted in a fatality” (Kerr et al., 2006a, p4). Insite has trained health professionals who are able to recognize the indicators of injection drug related overdose, such as ace turning pale, blue, or flushed, or not being able to respond to pain stimulus (Kerr et al., 2006a). Due to prior knowledge, the health professionals are able to take the appropriate measures to stabilize the injection drug user, which will decrease the injection drug related overdose fatality rate (Kerr et al., 2006a). Blood borne diseases, such as HVC and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), are deadly diseases that are commonly found in injection drug users (REFERENCE). Injection drug users are high at risk for these deadly diseases due to the fact that many injection drug users tend to share paraphernalia, like syringes, which can also transmit blood to and from the injection drug user (Kerr et al., 2005a), (Kerr et al., 2005b). Another study was conducted in March 2004 for a 7-month period to examine if the safe injection site reduced syringe sharing amongst injection drug users who use Insite (Kerr et al., 2005b). 582 individuals were analyzed for HIV, and were asked to state whether or not they had been sharing syringes in the past (Kerr et al., 2005b). The results of the

I agree with you one-hundred percent. People base everything on beliefs. If people want drugs they will figure out a way to get drug or make their own. If they would decriminalize drugs somewhat and make the punishment not as hard it might help jail and prison population. We are all equal on this earth and we need to help the people with drug problems. Whether, it's with rehab or another form of helping drug users it's a battle that we all face. Prisons keep growing everyday and if we don't help people out it's going to get a lot worse.

The social dimensions in a prison setting impact the biomedical aspect of HCV by dramatically increasing an inmate’s risk of HCV transmission. Prisons socially determine the transmission of HCV infection among prison inmates in several ways. First and foremost, the use of unsterile drug needles and associated paraphernalia for illicit drugs leads to transmission of HCV among prison inmates (1). A high proportion of inmates are injection drug-users and addicted to various drugs. According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CSSA), at least 7 of 10 offenders in the federal correctional system have engaged in drug use within the one-year period to their incarceration (2). Although the prison inmates do not have access to sterile needle equipment, they continue their habit during incarceration. This is due to the lack of health services for addiction management in most prisons, where the resources provided – if any – do not provide the adequate support required to cope with addictions treatment (1). Studies show that inmates are far less likely to benefit from health-education activities, such as drug abstinence counselling, without parallel medicine-based treatment (1). Drug addiction management treatment may include methadone or buprenorphine maintenance treatment (1).

Therefore considering the aim of public health which is mainly prevention it will reduce the medical cost of treating these communicable diseases due to injection drug use. This idea is supported by Studies conducted in Australia and United Kingdom where the timely initiation of needle exchange programs played a very important role in limiting the spread of HIV among injection drug users and the cost to the U.S. healthcare system of treating these preventable HIV infections between $244and $538 million, respectively (Drucker, 2013). The other opposition against the needle exchange program is related to discarding used needles. Opponents of the program argue that needle exchange programs increase the number of discarded needles in the community. However harm reduction programs such as drop boxes significantly help to reduce the number of needles discarded (Luc de Montigny, Anne V. Moudon, Barbara Leigh, Kim Young,

The controversial issue of whether to distribute sterile needles and Narcan or Naloxone to addicts has been an increasing issue. The increase in the use of injectable substances such as opioids has caused a rise in the number of blood borne diseases, such as HIV. Programs have tried to combat this rise by distributing clean needles to addicts through needle exchange programs. These programs trade unsanitary, used needles for fresh, sterile ones. These programs also distribute the reversal medication for opioid overdoses, Naloxone. Programs like these are trying to benefit everyone with supplies they believe will be helpful to the addicts. These supplies are continuing to hurt the addicts as well. The needles allow for profit to be made by the

They have been used by that many different people” (Wood, 2005, p.1834). It is often the case that inmates have no other choice but to share needles/equipment since sterile needles are not made available in federal or provincial prisons in Canada (Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, n.d.). More often than not, the drug-injecting equipment is home-made, such as converting ball-point pens into needles (Canadian Aids Society, 2000).

Every year, 30 million people spend time in prisons or other closed settings and more than 10.2 million are incarcerated at any given time. (Dolan, K. et al (2015). These prisons are at high risk for drug use and injections. This is how many of the

Criminalization of use of drugs has been in existence since the nineteen century. The abuse of opium and cocaine at the end of the 19th century reached epidemic proportions. Local governments began prohibiting opium dens and opium importation. Between 1915 and 1938, more than 5000 physicians were convicted and fined or jailer. (Trebach, 1982, p. 125) Common luxury commodities such as alcohol were illegal some years ago in the United States. While the motive behind the criminalization of the use of alcohol was correct, the approach seems questionable. The main motive for the ban on the use of alcohol was to avoid addiction, family neglect and ensure that parents were responsible. In this perspective, the legislators blamed alcohol for the neglect

The international drug control effort began fifty years ago with the aim of eradicating the abuse of certain drugs by controlling their supply. A complex international system of enforcement grew on this belief in supply control. Five decades on, the empirical data is available and overwhelming; the system has failed. Worse still, it has become increasingly clear that the human rights costs of pursuing many of its policies render them unjustifiable. From mass incarcerations in the United States and Asia, to the HIV/AIDS epidemic flooding Russia and the waves of violence rippling through Latin America-the current global drug policies are worsening current global problems. Nevertheless, driven by a mixture of bureaucratic and ideological inertia, the international drug control system governed through the United Nations and enforced by a number of core states continues to pursue many of the same failed policies.