A new study suggests a safe-drug-injection site in Vancouver that has been hailed by scientists as a success is really a failure.First, the study's author Colin Mangham has been publishing reports for years against "harm reduction" drug policies -- which, briefly, are policies which tolerate drug use rather than try to prevent it. The safe injection site is a prime example of just such a policy in action -- and therefore, in this man's opinion, it must be stopped. What's the harm? Well, the problem seems to be that the harm reduction "ideology" makes us "vulnerable to the drug legalization movement". Can't have that, I guess.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice, says there are serious problems in the interpretation of findings about Insite - the first such facility in North America - which opened as a pilot project over three years ago.
. . . report author Colin Mangham, director of research with the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, refutes such claims, saying positive findings about Insite have been overstated while negative ones have been ignored.
"(The findings) give an impression the facility is successful, when in fact the research clearly shows a lack of program impact and success."
Wood E, Kerr T, Montaner JS, Strathdee SA, Wodak A, Hankins CA, et al. Rationale for evaluating North America’s first medically supervised safer injecting facility. Lancet 2004;4:301-6.
Wood E, Kerr T, Lloyd-Smith E, Buchner C, Marsh D, Montaner J, Tyndall M. Methodology for evaluating Insite: Canada’s first medically supervised safer injection facility for injection drug users. Harm Reduction Journal 2004; 1-5.
Wood E, Tyndall M, Li K, Lloyd-Smith E, Small W, Montaner J, Kerr T. Do supervised injecting facilities attract higher-risk injection drug users? American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 2005; 29: 126-130.
Wood, E., Tyndall, M., Qui Z., Zhang, R., Montaner J., & Kerr T, Service Uptake and Characteristics of Injection Drug Users Utilizing North America’s First Medically Supervised Safer Injecting Facility. American Journal of Public Health, 2005, 5, 770-73.
Kerr T, Stoltz J, Tyndall M, Li K, Zhang R, Montaner J, Wood E. Impact of a medically supervised safer injection facility on community drug use patterns: a before and after study. BMJ 2006; 332:220-222.
Wood E, Kerr T, Stoltz J, Quia Z, Zhanga R, Montanera SG, & Tyndall MW. Prevalence and correlates of hepatitis C infection among users of North America’s first medically supervised safer injection facility. Public Health (2005) 119, 1111–1115
Wood E, Tyndall M, Stoltz J, Small W, Lloyd-Smith E, Zhang R, Montaner J, Kerr T. Factors associated with syringe sharing among users of a medically supervised safer injecting facility. American Journal of Infectious Diseases 2005, 50-54.
Wood E, Tyndall MW, Lai C, Montaner JG, & Kerr T. Impact of a medically supervised safer injecting facility on drug dealing and other drug-related crime. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 2006, 1:13.
Wood E, Tyndall M, Stoltz J, Small W, Zhang R, O’Connell J, Montaner J, Kerr T. Safer injecting education for HIV prevention within a medically supervised safer injecting facility. International Journal of Drug Policy 2005; 281-284.
Kerr T, Tyndall M, Li K, Montaner J, Wood E. Safer injection facility use and syringe sharing in injection drug users. Lancet 2005; 366:316-8.
Wood E, Kerr T, Small W, Li K, Marsh D, Montaner J, et al. Changes in public order after the opening of a medically supervised safer injecting facility for illicit injection drug users. Canadian Medical Association Journal 2004; 171:731-4
Tyndall MW, Kerr T, Zhang R, King E, Montaner JG, Wood E. Attendance, drug use patterns, and referrals made from North America’s first supervised injection facility. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 83 (2006) 193–198.
Wood E et al. Attendance at Supervised Injecting Facilities and Use of Detoxification Services. New England Journal of Medicine, June 8, 2006.
We cannot start selling our water. Because once we start, we can never stop.For anyone of limited imagination, here's the scenario: Imagine if Arizona, say, or Nevada, or California built a pipeline to import millions of tonnes of water. They're not going to use this water just to irrigate a few acres to grow broccoli, not considering how much the pipeline would cost. No, to make their investment back they would have to use it to build new cities, with new homes and schools and factories as well as farms.
. . . A senior defence official, seeking to present Mr. O'Connor's views as he fights for his political life, said the Defence Minister feels he has been shouldering the blame for Canada's policies toward Afghan detainees for more than a year.Well, that would likely be because he IS to blame for Canada's policies toward Afghan prisoners of war.
National Defence feels it has been carrying a disproportionate share of the load in Afghanistan — and the public-relations war.And here I thought the Canadian military was fighting a real war in Afghanistan, not a "public relations war".
It believes other departments and agencies should be responsible for issues such as detainee policy, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency."little shrimps"? Can't find the road? Ouch. The insults show just how much the Canadian military actually disrespects both Foreign Affairs and CIDA. So how willing would they be to follow their orders about treatment of prisoners of war?
“The bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs resisted getting stuck with this issue this week,” the defence source said. “They don't want this hornet's nest. They are happy going to their cocktail parties and eating little shrimps.”
In particular, there have been complaints that Canada's foreign aid is slow to arrive in the dangerous southern province where the Canadian Forces are active.
“When CIDA discovers the road to Kandahar, they will be able to send in their funds,” the defence source said.
. . . federal sources said the previous Liberal government made a mistake in 2005 when it tasked the military — and not Foreign Affairs, which has more expertise in human rights — to sign a deal with the Afghans to ensure that prisoners of war were not abused after their transfer into local jails.And finishing with a flourish, here's the final "laugh til you cry" moment -- attacking Conservative policy on prisoners of war is "maligning our troops". So I guess in effect, they really think that the troops are to blame for this whole mess:
Mr. Day said yesterday that the opposition attacks had to stop because they were affecting Canadian officials in Afghanistan. “Stop maligning our corrections officers and stop maligning our troops,” Mr. Day said.Oh, OK, I guess I'll have to shut up -- I wouldn't want to be considered unpatriotic.
Speaking of our wonderful Iraqi occupation, it's creating jobs back home. Too bad they're for fitters of prosthetic limbs.
Initially, the government denied the existence of the report, responding in writing that "no such report on human-rights performance in other countries exists." After complaints to the Access to Information Commissioner, it released a heavily edited version this week.The redactions in the report were actually quite frightening, because they demonstrate so clearly the pattern of denial and deceit.
Among the sentences blacked out by the Foreign Affairs Department in the report's summary is "Extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common," according to full passages of the report obtained independently by The Globe.This is what has been happening to them:
The Foreign Affairs report, titled Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights, was marked "CEO" for Canadian Eyes Only. It seems to remove any last vestige of doubt that the senior officials and ministers knew that torture and abuse were rife in Afghan jails.
The report leaves untouched many paragraphs such as those beginning "one positive development" or "there are some bright spots."
But heavy dark blocks obliterate sentences such as "the overall human rights situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in 2006."
. . .
A comparison of the full text — parts of which were obtained by The Globe and Mail — with the edited version shows a consistent pattern of excising negative findings or observations from the report with positive ones left in.
There was no explanation for blacking out observations such as "military, intelligence and police forces have been accused of involvement in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping extortion, torture and extrajudicial killing."
. . .
The report raises a red flag for any government bound by the Geneva Conventions and responsible for safeguarding transferred detainees from torture and abuse.
It makes repeated dark references to the reputation and performance of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, or intelligence police. Most prisoners captured by Canadian troops are now turned over to the widely feared NDS, which is considered tougher but perhaps less corrupt that the Afghan National Police. "Allegations of torture and arbitrary detention by NDS officials have also been reported," the full text of the report says.
Another portion that is blacked out reads "widespread allegations of corruption and human-rights violations exist with respect to the Afghanistan National Police (ANP) and Ministry of Interior (MOI)."
Most of those held by the NDS for an extended time said they were whipped with electrical cables, usually a bundle of wires about the length of an arm. Some said the whipping was so painful that they fell unconscious.
Interrogators also jammed cloth between the teeth of some detainees, who described hearing the sound of a hand-crank generator and feeling the hot flush of electricity coursing through their muscles, seizing them with spasms.
Another man said the police hung him by his ankles for eight days of beating. Still another said he panicked as interrogators put a plastic bag over his head and squeezed his windpipe.
Torturers also used cold as a weapon, according to detainees who complained of being stripped half-naked and forced to stand through winter nights when temperatures in Kandahar drop below freezing.
The men who survived these ordeals often seem like broken husks. They tell their stories with quiet voices and trembling hands. They can't sleep, they complain of chronic pain and they forget the simplest things, such as remembering to pull down their pants when they use the toilet.
After interrogation, the NDS often sends Taliban suspects to Sarpoza prison, on the western edge of the city. Detainees who arrive at the facility's tall metal gates are occasionally so badly impaired that they're incapable of caring for themselves properly and prison officials and fellow inmates complain that they're left with the chores of washing, dressing, and feeding them.
"We were very deferential because…it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you're standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."And now we have a treasure trove of more great moments in journalism, from yesterday's TV show Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War
APRIL: How is your faith guiding you?Now here's some reminiscing about Big Brother, from the CEO of CNN:
PRESIDENT BUSH: My faith sustains me because I pray daily. I pray for guidance.
WALTER ISAACSON: There was a patriotic fervor and the administration used it so that if you challenged anything you were made to feel that there was something wrong with that . . . And there was even almost a patriotism police which, you know, they'd be up there on the internet sort of picking anything a Christiane Amanpour, or somebody else would say as if it were disloyal.Meanwhile, over at CBS, they really were trying to do stories on the Bush administration's push for war, but without actually being too... well, you know, critical:
BOB SIMON (60 MINUTES): And I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it in a way almost light, if that doesn't seem ridiculous.There was even a quota system for talking to war opponents:
BILL MOYERS: Going to war, "almost light"?
BOB SIMON: Not to-- not to present it as a frontal attack on the administration's claims. Which would have been not only premature, but we didn't have the ammunition to do it at the time. We did not know then that there were no mass-- weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
We only knew that the connection the administration was making between Saddam and Al Qaeda was very tenuous at best and that the argument it was making over the aluminum tubes seemed highly dubious. We knew these things. And therefore we could present the Madison Avenue campaign on these things. Which was a-- sort of softer, less confrontational way of doing it
BILL MOYERS: Did you go to any of the brass at CBS-- even at 60 MINUTES-- and say, "Look, we gotta dig deeper. We gotta connect the dots. This isn't right.
BOB SIMON: No in all-- in all honesty, with a thousand Mea Culpas-- I've done a few stories in Iraq. But-- nope I don't think we followed up on this.
PHIL DONOHUE: You could have the supporters of the President alone. And they would say why this war is important. You couldn't have a dissenter alone. Our producers were instructed to feature two conservatives for every liberal.And what is Tim Russert's excuse? He says it's all our fault, not his. Somebody shouldda called him and told him the real story:
BILL MOYERS: You're kidding.
PHIL DONOHUE: No this is absolutely true-
BILL MOYERS: Instructed from above?
PHIL DONOHUE: Yes . . . there's just a terrible fear. And I think that's the right word.
BILL MOYERS: Eric Sorenson, who was the president of MSNBC, told the NEW YORK TIMES quote: "Any misstep and you can get into trouble with these guys and have the patriotism police hunt you down."
PHIL DONOHUE: He's the management guy. So his phone would ring. Nobody's going to call Donahue and tell him to shut up and support the war. Nobody's that foolish. It's a lot more subtle than that.
BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES [the one about the aluminum tubes] And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.Or maybe is really all the Democrats' fault....yeah, that's it, its the Democrats!
TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that . . . What my concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.
BILL MOYERS: What do you make of the fact that of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news, from September 2002 until February 2003, almost all the stories could be traced back to sources from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department?Because that's what journalists do, after all -- search out those opposing views and make sure the public knows the whole story. Or, rather, that's what they WOULD do, if only it wasn't so much work . . .
TIM RUSSERT: It's important that you have a-- an oppos-- opposition party. That's our system of government.
BILL MOYERS: So, it's not news unless there's somebody-
TIM RUSSERT: No, no, no. I didn't say that. But it's important to have an opposition party, your opposit-- opposing views.
If this war is lost, it's Iraqis who lost it.Incoherent, aren't they? The American war media don't even know whose zooming who in Iraq anymore.
Joseph Cella, president of the Catholic-based organization Fidelis, called the cartoon "venomous, terribly misleading and blatantly anti-Catholic."Well, the abortion decision itself was venomous, terribly misleading and blatantly pro-Catholic.
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me."Now what did that remind me of? Oh, yeah...
Out of the blue
and into the black
You pay for this,
but they give you that
And once you're gone,
you can't come back
When you're out of the blue
and into the black.
Shorter Everybody On The Internet:
The senseless massacre at Virginia Tech basically confirms everything I’ve been saying all along.
Let's get the Tory argument straight:Yep, that pretty well sums it up.
1) The Senate sucks;
2) The Senate should overturn the Kyoto bill passed by the House of Commons;
3) The Liberal government didn't do enough;
4) Stéphane Dion wants to do too much;
5) Kyoto targets cannot be met; and
6) The government is committed to the principles of Kyoto.
. . . More Tory logic:
1) Liberals had no programs to decrease greenhouse gases;
2) Liberal programs to decrease greenhouse gasses had to be cancelled because they did not work;
3) Tory reinstatement of Liberal programs to decrease greenhouse gasses with less funding proves that the Tories are taking greenhouse gases seriously;
4) The Tories will introduce new programs to decrease greenhouse gases because not enough is being done;
5) Any real effort to reduce greenhouse gases will lead to economic destruction.
