Canada:
Heroin
Prescription
Experiment
Debated
in
Parliament
4/30/99
Should Canada set up clinical trials to provide hard-core addicts with heroin under medical supervision? This was the subject of a heated debate Wednesday (4/28) in the House of Commons, prompted by a private motion by New Democratic Party MP Libby Davies (East Vancouver) that Parliament resolve to support the implementation of a heroin maintenance experiment. Davies' motion did not receive a warm welcome from every MP. "We are talking about free heroin for addicts," complained one MP, Gurmant Grewel (Surrey Central, Ref.). "What the New Democratic Party is proposing is a recipe for disaster. This is the kind of solution that was adopted in Switzerland. Addicts from all across Europe went to Zurich to live with their addiction and it created a mess." Grewel concluded, "Still, [Davies] introduces the motion we are debating today as if there were the remotest possibility that the government would listen to her and take action. How sad." But other members praised the motion. Pauline Piccard (Drummond, BQ) said its purpose was to "make sensible and regulated treatment options available to health professionals and the injection drug users under their medical supervision... with the ultimate goal of reducing street drug related crime, protecting the community, and saving lives." Abstinence is a valid goal of drug treatment, but may not be a reasonable short-term objective, she said. Davies told the Week Online she introduced the motion to promote awareness and discussion of heroin maintenance and other harm reduction initiatives among members of parliament. "Along with all the other initiatives that are taking place, it contributes to the momentum and the debate that has to take place to reform our drug laws and our attitude toward drug users," she said. Heroin overdoses are the leading cause of death among adults aged 30-49 in British Columbia, with 178 deaths in 1998 in Vancouver alone. In addition, injection drug use is now believed to be the leading cause of HIV infection, and as many as 70 percent of injection drug users carry the hepatitis C virus. The Canadian Medical Association, as well as a national task force on HIV and AIDS, has recommended a heroin trial. Under Canadian parliamentary procedure, private motions must receive unanimous consent by a committee to be "votable," before they may be submitted as resolutions. Davies' motion did not meet this requirement, but she said the debate itself was key. "Even to get people more familiar with the reality of what happens to people when they're users, and how they're criminalized and marginalized, is very important. And I've had lots of MPs come up to me and tell me 'good for you for raising the issue, it needs to be raised, it needs to be debated.'" Ultimately, parliamentary approval is not necessary for a heroin prescription experiment in Canada. Under current regulations, such decisions fall under the purview of the Minister of Health, Alan Rock. "Of course, politically, he's not going to do it if he thinks it's very risky and it's going to leave him in a vulnerable position," Davies said. Elinor Caplan, Rock's parliamentary secretary, said during the debate that while she believes Davies' proposal is "well intended," the Health Ministry does not support heroin maintenance "at this time." Instead, she said the Ministry would continue to promote the expansion of methadone maintenance and other alternative therapies. Davies, who has set up a working group on harm reduction policies that includes more than a dozen MPs and several senators, said she believes it's her job to create political cover for her colleagues and the Health Minister. "Building political support across party lines is a very big part of the work, so that when someone like Alan Rock sticks his toe out to test the temperature he's not going to feel like he's going to get trashed for doing something like this," she said. Davies is keenly aware of harm reduction as a life-or-death policy. "Downtown on the East side in Vancouver, which is a part of the riding (district) I represent, people are literally dying on the street," she said. "And there are all kinds of things that have to happen. We need better housing, we need social support, we need other treatment options, prevention, education. What I don't want to see, though, is people just being further criminalized by the judicial system." Davies applauds the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police's decision to support the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana. "They're basically saying this is not a police issue anymore, it's a social issue, it's a health issue," she said. "I just hope that people like Alan Rock and our Justice Minister, Anne McClellan are listening. The debate is there. I see my job is just to push like hell." Transcripts of Canadian House of Commons debates are available online at http://www.parl.gc.ca. Read much more about heroin maintenance and other drug substitution programs at http://www.lindesmith.org/library/focal1.html.
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