Yes, I’m touting this notion that some particular job losses are great.  You see, the loss of these jobs indicates a healthier society, saved money and beyond that, in fact, an apparent opportunity for the Dutch government to make some extra cash off of Belgium.

Fun fact before continuing on.  Though the Netherlands is often referred to as Holland in its entirety, Wikipedia tells me that in fact, North and South Holland are just two of the twelve provinces that make up the country and thusly, referring to the Netherlands as Holland is a sure sign that people like me have probably never been there.

So anyhow, it seems that Holland…err…The land of de-facto cannabis legalization is closing a few prisons.  As the result of a declining crime rate, it seems that the Netherlands has room in its prison system for about 2,000 more prisoners than police and the courts can currently produce.  Also, unlike their neighbours in Belgium, The Dutch also expect the declining trend in crime to continue and see a future with 1,200 fewer employees in the prison system.  Since Belgium still has trouble with crime rates, there is a deal in the works that may see the Netherlands benefit to the tune of 30 million Euros to play babysitter to about 500 Belgian prisoners.

Oddly enough, it would seem that despite cannabis being made publicly available making it a popular cannabis consumer’s tourist destination, the Dutch haven’t been dealing with addicts robbing houses to get their next fix, murders, rapes or who knows what.  No, in the land of legal weed, prisons are shutting down.

Of course this has to do with much more than just legally available cannabis.  Dutch society has formed in its own way and the low crime rate is a result of cultural developments in that nation.  But honestly?  Can anyone tell me that giving up at least some of the war on weed in the Netherlands doesn’t have a great deal to so with this type of thing as well?

Goodness gracious. With such an ignominious past, one has to Wonder if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will ever be able to cobble together their image in any kind of manner not resembling the progress made by a slug attempting to crawl across a salted cracker.  A couple of stories as published in Macleans (and picked up by basically no other media outlet at all) tackle the issue of Vancouver’s safe injection site, Insite, with a relatively new perspective.

If you’re not currently aware, Insite is a facility in which injection drug users are allowed to inject drugs under the supervision of a nurse.  the site operates under a legal exemption established by the former federal Liberal government.  The current Conservative government has made clear that it opposes spending federal money on Insite and for the record, I do as well but not because Insite fails to work.  In fact, Insite is incredibly effective.  I simply think it should be funded locally by a community that cares rather than by a federal government.  Anyhow, despite being opposed to spending money on Insite, the Canadian courts have so far made clear that the government does not have a legal right to close the facility.  Again, while this is something I don’t agree with in principle, I am none the less a supporter of the facility and this is all something of a discussion for another time.  What’s interesting in the here and now regarding Insite is that the RCMP are being implicated in scandal yet again.

In the first story linked above, MacLeans writer John Geddes details the genesis of how it came to be that the RCMP stood fast in its opposition to closing the safe injection facility despite a great deal of evidence suggesting that the centre was successful in achieving its goals and was a positive impact on the area in which it was placed.  The second story explains it clearly because some people obviously don’t understand it despite the column being pretty darned clear.

In the beginning, the RCMP had railed against the safe injection site as an enabling force in the community that would encourage injection drug use and the tune today is still much the same if you can find an RCMP spokesperson brave enough to actually play it.  Most of the fiddling these days is done by the political wings of the asylum though and there may be a very disappointing reason for that rather than politicians simply being better suited to speak publicly on issues of this nature.  Nay in fact, it is not a mere possibility but it would seem as a result of this story in Macleans that the RCMP was in fact completely prepared to recant and acknowledge that Insite was supported by all of the evidence.  Beyond that, it’s even possible that the RCMP was ready to admit that of the four studies commissioned at the behest of the mounties, the two that made a case against Insite did not meet conventional academic standards and were not credible studies from which to draw conclusions.  This wouldn’t have been a surprise seeing as both studies were from questionable sources, one of them actually being produced by Colin Mangham, research director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada. The DPNC was founded by former Conservative Member of Parliament, Randy White, a man with a reputation for specializing in drug policy and maintaining a fanatical opposition to legalization or harm reduction practices in society.

Again though, this is another tangent. There is an issue here that goes far beyond the politicization of scientific studies and instead brings one to wonder how badly compromised our police are since they themselves have obviously been politicized. The issue here is not the dubious research; falsehoods are easily countered by the truth for any one who is willing to take a moment to consider all the information objectively. No, the greater worry here in that just as the RCMP were about to recant and some out to announce that they would no longer be condemning Insite, an order from somewhere at the top quashed the very notion of the RCMP acting honourably and with transparency.

While no one yet knows (though we will eventually) whether the order came from outside the force or from the top brass within the organization itself, the situation is clear.  The RCMP was about to admit that research that amounted to nothing more than a fishing expedition for anti-injection site information was not endorsed any longer by the RCMP.  The RCMP was about to deal an embarrassing and powerful blow to the government of the day and to others who oppose the safe injection site and this was all dashed by a decision that seems as though it could only have been political.  One of the best weapons anti-drug warriors have is that the police almost always seem to stand with them and this was about to be ripped away; a small victory for proponents of Insite and simmilar policy directions.

Of course, top cops aren’t talking but some one certainly knows who told who to do what and while it is perhaps entirely reasonably to demand an accountable and transparent action from the national police force of our land, I don’t think it is really expected.  In my eyes, our police have, at so many levels, been horribly tarnished in their image.  This type of thing only serves to further entrench my view that police can not be trusted and the only reason I’ll ever call them to defend me is because by law, there are no other options available.  As laid out in both articles above, it is clear that the RCMP had preconceived ideas regarding Insite, sought out research meant to specifically bolster those ideas, were ready to recant and admit that those ideas were wrong and then clammed up at the behest of an as of yet unknown source at the top.

I don’t know how some of you do it.  I really do think it would be just wonderful to be able to trust police but I can’t and I honestly don’t know how some of you can do it.

This is stupid.  And I don’t mean that blogger in particular; heck I don’t think the blogger is actually stupid, but this notion that the blogger posted is ruffling my feathers.  I first read about it over at John’s blog and was disappointed at safe injection sites (facilities that provide supervised environment where injection drug users may do drugs as they please) being labelled a “left” issue by him.  I know John to be an extremely intelligent fellow so this was only the beginning of an extreme amount of frustration that has caused me to mash together this blog post.  It’s a result of feeling anger, disappointment and unadulterated frustration at reading about not only the Wall government’s decision to keep safe injection sites out of the province, but the reaction as well.

If you haven’t guessed, I have an intellectual interest in the drug policy debate.  I’ve read oodles of information, mostly over the past 5 years, (give or take) about public drug policy in regard to cannabis, heroin, cocaine and several other substances you may recognize as being illegal to possess, manufacture or distribute.  As a lay person, I’ve read an innumerable number of published studies (both peer reviewed and not) on the social impact of public policy regarding the drug trade and pharmacological effects of drugs within the body as well.  In short, I am confident that I am well informed on the subject of drug policy the world over and in North America particularly.  I have invested a great deal of my own life into simply becoming informed and have swung from a soft prohibitionist years ago to a stanch advocate not simply of legalization, but of repealing the state’s prohibition of all drugs.

That being said, that doesn’t mean I’m all for safe injection sites such as the overtly successful “Insite” program in Vancouver, B.C.  No, I am very much against public expenditure for health services and so to me, safe injection sites take us further down a road we should be trying to find an exit from.  So my views are, on their face, at odds with each other.  On the one hand, I’m very much in favour of the state granting us the freedom to put whatever it is we like in our bodies and on the other, not necessarily in favour of a safe injection site allowing injection drug users to shoot up without fear of arrest.  The trick is, in this instance I can be a pragmatist because I know that the public health care system is not about to disappear tomorrow and without a society that functions with a truly free market, injection drug users have only the hope of the state’s help seeing as the community is already tapped out because of some misguided altruistic goal of us all paying for a bloated public health system.  To a purist libertarian like myself, safe injection sites do no make sense financially in a free market system but for those who would accept a public health care system, it makes complete sense both financially and socially.  The arguments against are galling in their ignorance and this is why I’m so blasted angry about them.  I’m so angry that I’m driven to support the public expenditure that would be required to establish and maintain safe injection sites.  Let’s debunk a few myths and be honest with eachother.

MYTH:
Leaving an injection drug user to contract an illness like Hep C or HIV/AIDS eventually solves the problem.  Either they overdose or they die of an illness.  Spending money on these low-lifes to preserve a habit is a useless and wasted expense.

FACT:
A Hep C patient will cost the health care system anywhere from $5,000 to $21,000.  An HIV/AIDS patient, though their life time, will cost the system around $120,000.  If just two cases of HIV/AIDS and 10 cases of Hep C are prevented each year, that results in anywhere from $290,000 to $450,000 saved per year in direct costs to the health care system.  There is no thought given here in this post to indirect costs saved in the economy which by some estimates are as high as ten times the direct costs.  94 new cases of HIV were found in Saskatoon in 2009.  these cases are heavily concentrated among injection drug users and sex trade workers.  Sex trade workers often serve as an unfortunate conduit for these infections to find their way to other pockets of the population and demonstrate a significant overlap in the sex trade/injection drug user demographics.  Diagnosed cases of Hep C in Sask’ were hovering around about 600 or so in 2008 but not only does the illness often spike when HIV rates spike, it’s also dramatically under diagnosed until it’s become a costly illness.

further left unanalyzed in this post are cost savings from safe injection sites treating patients for other ancillary medical concerns such as injection mishaps.  Injection accidents which can later turn into abscesses and other bacterial infections could, over the years, save the health care system added millions as has been the case in Vancouver with just a single safe injection site.

MYTH:
A safe injection site is an enabler of injection drug use.  Giving addicts the means to inject drugs without fear of arrest or other punishment will lead to increased rates of use and further disease and/or overdose deaths.

FACT:
A safe injection site is no more an enabler of injection drug use than a sexual health clinic is an enabler of bondage.  People who assume this are unfortunately missing the point of a safe injection site completely.  with supervised nurses on staff, a safe injection site’s secondary mission is to prevent overdose deaths.  Vancouver’s safe injection site Insite has never once suffered the unfortunate incident of an overdose death.  There have been hundreds of overdoses at the facility over the years, but never a death as a result.  The primary mission of which many people are not aware is referring injection drug users to treatment and educating them about the risks of their habit.  It may seem too obvious to assume, but it’s important to point out that an injection drug user doesn’t even get an opportunity to ask about the dangers of injection drug use when they’re shooting up under a tire swing.

Safe injection sites do not provide drugs though they do provide clean needles, much in the way a sexual health clinic offers up free condoms, no questions asked.  Rather than enable drug use, a safe injection site provides all of the information an injection drug user may be interested in (including how to seek treatment) while also providing an environment where the user does not feel pressured or prejudged.  In this regard, Vancouver’s safe injection site has demonstrated how successful the program can be at referring patients to treatment or at the very least, ensuring they have the information required to avoid preventable risks like needle sharing.

MYTH:
A safe injection site concentrates users in one area and thusly increases crime in that area.  Any neighbourhood having to bear the burden of a safe injection site will suffer.

FACT:
A safe injection site does not increase neighbourhood crime.  there has not been even a single peer reviewed study that has bore this out since Vancouver’s safe injection site was established.  A peer reviewed study has long discredited this claim.  A simmilar study in Sydney Australia came to the same conclusion at an earlier date.  In fact, both studies found a significantly reduced rate of vehicle theft.

MYTH:
A safe injection site leads to more users shooting up in a public areas around the site as they are generally concentrated in this area.  More needles are found in parks and on side walks.

FACT:
This was also studied and found to be false.  The incidences of public drug injection fell and the number of needles discarded fell by almost half in the surrounding area.

The point of all this is that a safe injection site is very effective in its stated goals.  The goals are to preserve life, save money and reduce drug abuse.  It achieves all three spectacularly.  Vancouver’s safe injection site has saved enough money to keep it operating for decades if it suddenly stopped being cost effective for some reason.  If we accept public health care, it’s flatly an ill informed position to rally against a safe injection facility in any urban centre and arguably to a lesser degree in any suburban centre.  Again, this is not about enable drug abuse and if you really think that’s what this does, you’re terribly and embarrassingly ill informed.

Funny creatures those Conservatives, it`s never all or nothing, it`s kind of something here and there and only if you can kind of get away with it.  Canada’s governing conservatives recently caused a bit of a ruckus when Bev Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, recently revealed that Canada refuses to include funding for safe abortions in the developing world.  Rightly so, this position has been called hypocritical by papers abroad as women in Canada have the right to legally access safe abortions and have had that right for years.

For a government that has plainly stated it does not wish to re-open the abortion debate, this is a pretty difficult position.  Kind of like a fat guy publicly swearing off fast food unless he’s visiting his neighbours.  Kinda hard to retain credibility in such a situation and in this case, the Conservatives are very very fat.  Ok, so I just wanted to call conservatives fatties.  It was a bit of a stretch I know.

It’s of course ridiculous to refuse to support funding for abortions so long as abortion is legal here.  If Conservatives want to set the example, they should absolutely change policy here at home before trying to influence policy abroad in a manner that is so dramatically different than what we impose on our own citizenry here.  If they really think abortion is so bad that they want to condemn mothers in the developing world to deaths under the knives of unskilled butchers, they should at least let women in Canada suffer the same privilege right?

Perhaps one of the most ridiculous incidents that has happened regarding this issue is the outburst by Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth.  Ruth, a very well established feminist with a history of loudly and unapologetically defending the rights of women said that women’s groups should “shut the fuck up” about abortion.  In an incredibly lame attempt at defending her comments, The Calgary Herald tried to spin this into an issue focused on the right of the Canadian government to fund whatever out of country programs it likes.  It’s pointed out that Canada can choose to fund hip replacements or not which of course is true, but totally misses the mark in this case.  This is an instance in which a moral judgment is being made about an area of funding.  The moral judgment is incompatible with [policies here at home and as such, is very rightly seen as lacking credibility and establishing a hypocritical stance.

In a surprising drop of publishing standards, the Globe and Mail not only fails to hit the mark but appears to be aiming at the wrong target all together.  The editorial makes the valid point that this type of debate needs to include more than just abortion but seems to totally gloss over the fact that Ruth is trying to advocate that a portion of the debate be excluded.  Before the Conservatives made their declaration that they were going to not support funding abortions as part of maternal health initiatives, this was an all inclusive discussion.  Now, it’s a discussion about family planning, maternal health and reproductive health except abortion because of a moral judgment made to exclude funding for abortions in poor nations.

This is simple.  It’s either the Conservatives fully accept that they’re telling poor nations to do as we say and not as we do, they reform policies at home to reflect the government’s values of the day or they admit that it was a hypocritical position to take and either pull all funding or include funding for abortions in developing countries.

I’ve heard this twice now in as many years and it’s getting tiresome.  Before going any further, let’s get a couple of things straight.

Doctors require a great deal of education and know more about diagnosing and treating illnesses than I likely ever will.  Doctors must be able to achieve incredible academic feats to become a doctor.  Doctors do require brain power.

That being said, a lot of them are pricks and I am constantly reminded why I have so very little patience for them.

The thing I have heard a couple of times now is that a doctor requires a special license to sign a medical marijuana access regulations form granting a patient exemption from the controlled drugs and substances act in possessing marijuana for medical reasons.  No such license to sign said forms exists and any doctor who has been told it is required is either misinformed or enough of an absolute god damned prick to mislead their patients just so they don’t have to deal with them on a controversial topic any more.

Let’s be clear here.

ANY GENERAL PRACTITIONER OF MEDICINE IN CANADA CAN SIGN A MEDICAL MARIJUANA FORM!

Some ailments for which medical marijuana may be obtained (not prescribed.  An MMAR card is not a prescription)  do also require the endorsement of a specialist but again, no special license is required of a GP to sign a medical marijuana application.

Doctors are generally a close minded bunch who deal with us, the uninformed and unwashed masses of course; but I just wish that every so often they would come off their damned pedestals or even be honest with their patients.