The battle over harm reduction in Vancouver just gets uglier all the time:
Indeed, police are responsible for enforcing the law, not shaping social policy. Law enforcementâs backhanded attempt at inserting itself into the academic debate over harm reduction is completely inappropriate and disturbing. Does anyone believe that police-sponsored research will ever reach conclusions other than the need for more police power?
RCMP now claims that it conducts research all the time, which may be true, but misses the point. Police research should focus on measuring the effectiveness of their own programs, not producing political ammunition against non-police programs that police donât like.
VANCOUVER -Â The Pivot Legal Society has asked federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser to examine whether the RCMP exceeded its law-enforcement mandate by commissioning studies into Vancouver's supervised injection site.
Pivot lawyer and spokesman Doug King on Wednesday revealed RCMP e-mails indicating the national police force commissioned reports researching Insite.
"The RCMP Act gave the RCMP a mandate to act as peace officers for the citizens of Canada. Using public funds entrusted to them to fund a cynical critique of health-based research clearly does not fall within this mandate," King said. [Vancouver Sun]
Indeed, police are responsible for enforcing the law, not shaping social policy. Law enforcementâs backhanded attempt at inserting itself into the academic debate over harm reduction is completely inappropriate and disturbing. Does anyone believe that police-sponsored research will ever reach conclusions other than the need for more police power?
RCMP now claims that it conducts research all the time, which may be true, but misses the point. Police research should focus on measuring the effectiveness of their own programs, not producing political ammunition against non-police programs that police donât like.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Add new comment