Decriminalise drugs and there will be a reduction of drug addicts and drug pushers in prison. lokijy ng solution would create very expensive prisons to build. If it works in europe it should be tried, we know what the Americans are doing isn't working. Stephen Harper won't like a needle exhange and tattoos.

The last figure I`ve seen for cost of incarceration was $69,000 per inmate/year. This might explain the reluctance of the judicial system to lock people away. A key factor in needle exchange is cost of health care. Things like hepatitis are very expensive to treat over an extended period. Also prison guards like to keep the inmates on drugs - it makes them easier to handle. It`s a terrible place to work.

What a stroke of genius. Provide the inmates with a needle exchange so they can stab the guards with 'clean' syringes. Total rot!

What does bobthecabdriver mean by guards like to keep inmates on drugs - it makes them easier to handle? That is insane as the inmate population simply creates rival drug gangs similar to the street with very violent consequences. Drug turf wars and drug debts cause death, not an easier inmate to handle.

I stand by that statement. People in prison and on drugs are easier to deal with than people going `cold turkey`. Even taking away their cigarette supply creates serious tension and that`s why they still smoke. From the guards point of view anything that lowers tension is a good thing. I`m talking the real world - not the way things ought to be.

Please do not read into previous blurb that i want the inmates to have needles to use as weapons secreted on their persons,I suggest best to have the medical profession have a venipuncturist assigned to inject drugs provided by the province/federal gov'ts. The injections and drugs would be on request perhaps one out of ten thousand may want to get clean but i doubt that. A population of semi comatose inmates is easier to handle than a crowd of smokers without tobacco.

I understand what you are saying bobthecabdriver, about not wanting 100 inmates 'jones-ing' for drugs, but that is why inmates have access to the Methadone program and other groups such as AA and NA. To help them deal with their addictions. An inmate wired on Crystal Meth or crack is not fun for the guards either, we are not talking about about inmates quietly going to sleep after smoking some THC, but drugs which cause violence and wars over their supply...

"Drug Abuse--There Is an Answer!" at http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2001/7/8/article_03.htm

I realize that corrections officers are worried, but their anxiety over a needle exchange is fueled by lack of good information. The fact is, if you are going to be stabbed, better by a needle that has been used once rather than multiple times. Even if it is contaminated, the potential viral load on a single use needle will be much less than that of a needle that has been used multiple times by multiple people and therefore it will be less infectious. Secondly, if needles are obtained through an exchange, the inmates must store them in a manner that is visible, so the guards won't have to worry about accidentally coming across a hidden needle. In Switerland, which has had prison needle exchanges for a number of years, there has been no incidences of inmates threatening officers with needles. In fact, I suspect that inmates who have been given the benefit of a needle exhange are not likely to behave in a way that will jeopardize it. The corrections officers need to get over their kneejerk defensive reaction. With few exceptions, inmates will be released from prison back into the community. We need to do everything we can that they do not come out carrying an infectious virus that threatens the health of people in the community as well as themselves.

As a former correctional officer, I really feel for these unsung heroes. They do a job that majority of Canadians would not even dream of doing. To be blunt, most prisoners are pieces of garbage. They are in jail for a reason and if they are in a federal facilities, the crimes they've been convicted for are more serious. This cabdriver guy has no clue. If it was for me, I could reduce cost by reducing staff by reducing the amount of movement these idiots have in the jail. No yard time, no gym time, get your meals and eat in your cell. Some television and only news, nothing else. The moment an officer is subjected to disparaging remarks, the inmate needs to be then subjected to further harsher treatment, such as solitary confinement. I think what needs to be reinforced, and I'm sure the more elderly inmates would concur, is that time needs to be done quietly. As it stands, jails are filling up with noisy, mouthy, lippy, stupid 19-24 year old kids who think that adult system is the same as juvi. Some silence would be more beneficial than most prison programs as there would be copious amounts of time for self-reflection and thought and reflection on what they've done. I have more to come.

To tie this argument into the above article. I believe that encouraging a needle exchange fosters drug dealing, gang activity, and most of all, more drug addiction. So where is the difference from the outside? I think that needles should not be encouraged and drug abuse should be seen as a serious problem. Tattoos and tattoo parlors don't make it better, they just make the problem worse. Needles should be seen as contraband and treated as such with harsh consequences. The flow of narcotics can be stemmed by having frequent skin searches (not cavity searches) and eliminating contact during visits and abolishing conjugal visits. Inmates should only be allowed to have the minimal amounts of property for survival and anything more should be seen as hoarding and read as a sign for an upcoming disturbance as inmates put aside food and clothing if a conflict on the unit is about to happen. Ensure time is done quietly, like a monastery. In time you would see a more patient and cautious and less mouthy person emerge from the institution with less propensity to become involved in criminal activity. Finally, Inmates are pieces of garbage, period. They know they are. That's why they would use any way necessary to gain something and if that means using a dirty needle, then that's what's done. If this was in the United States, snipers and sharpshooters are brought in and the hostage taker is the one that is killed in the end, no questions asked and in quick time with little negotiation. Limit this drug flow problem and maybe the attitude on drugs on the street might be impacted also. Thanks. If I sound mean, I am, its just a result of the environment I worked in.

"Inmates are pieces of garbage, period". And we wonder at the high rate of recidivism. You sound like a supremicist. Not ALL inmates are pieces of garbage, Chevy; many of them are mentally ill, socially ostracised, physically abused. I'm not trying to make excuses for the vast amount of nasty people out there - I'm just trying to give you a little perspective. Persons with an addiction to heavy drugs are in a prison you obviously don't understand. Alternatives to needle based treatments exist; if you take a heroin addict who wants off the drug and give him therapy and a pot based recovery program, not only will you minimize the chance of needle assaults, you'll increase his chances of recovering from his addiction 10 fold. Take the addiction away, and much of the criminal behaviour disappears. Our prisons should be a treatment based process, rather than some monastic isolation. If you like your idea better, though, go on down to Guantanimo Bay (sp?) and join up with the rest of the gang.

I'm with you most of the way, Chevy, but the 'garbage' comment is a bit over the top. Prison is a place where inmates should have time to reflect on their misdeeds and begin on a road to humility. And devilsadvocate, you make some sense I admit, but a 'pot' based recovery program??!!!! Are you insane? Inmates should not be shooting up or getting tattoos in the joint PERIOD. Nothing like a bunch of tatties to make an ex-con COMPLETELY unemployable as if they don't have enough hurdles.

Brutal Bobby, when you work with them like I did, after a little while, they all become pieces of garbage. You try to help them, you write them letters of recommendation, you get them their treatments and hospital care, then? For what? They come right back 6 weeks later. And I'm supposed to care? There is a joke among civil servants about the BC Substance Abuse Management program provided for inmates incarcerated in British Columbia. The joke is? We call the program Substance Abuse Maintenance, not Management. Why, because that is exactly what it is. Devilsadvocate, go smoke another joint because your head certainly isn't at the level of this conversation. Brutal Bobby, read my above posts about how time should be done. One thing though, I never advocate for violence in our incarcerated environments, it doesn't solve anything and doesn't improve any conditions. What gets stuff done is total compromise and compliance. Thank you.

G'itmo Bay is something different. That's not a jail, that's a concentration camp, period. I'd hate to work in that kind of environment. But I did love working in a sentenced environment. I felt like I was giving the taxpayer a sense of security and good value for their dollar. I did my job well and cared for my colleagues. Devilsadvocate, when you're done having your joint, write something, I'm still waiting.

Chevy,if I walked a mile in your shoes, I would very possibly feel the same way. However, I do believe in my heart that people have the ability to redeem themselves, if they open their hearts, discover humility, and are willing to work at it----and the first (huge) step is to give up drugs,(including pot).

Bobby, I'm trying to believe in the redemption thing. I did believe but cynism does have the best of me right now. The first step is to recognize that it is a disease but also to realize that going back is not an option. Thank you

Better late than never, and I haven't smoked a thing today; working in the medical/legal system has given me an eye opening lesson, guys! I've seen innumerable people ease pain and suffering with a joint; that kind of thing will change your mind. Do you take ibuprofen? Asprin? Or some other, deadly, addictive painkiller? Perhaps watching a long term heroin addict try to kick his monkey and succeed with the help of a much softer and less damaging drug to help him would give you some of my perspective. Or perhaps you prefer the methadone method? Is that better than a little THC? Perhaps to you my "head" isn't at the same level as yours. True. Mine is out of my ass.

Wow! Excellent forum of opinion. I hope the writers will do a bit of homework, though--on who brings most of the drugs into the prisons. Apparently,it's the guards. It does seem a bit ironic that a person can be sentenced to jail for possession of heroin--into a place where heroin is just as easy to obtain. The answer, of course, is to legalize all drugs. Heroin is the world's safest and best analgesic.(For the first time, I actually heard an American doctor,on tv, suggest that the opiates are far better as analgesics than the NSAIDs and the COX 2 inhibitors.) Do I hear laughter? Well, everyone's brainwashed. It will kill you, but so will just about anything else you pump into your arteries in an overdose. Legal drugs are assessed on their side effects. It's becoming apparent that all of the COX 2's will kill you, as will the NSAIDS because of their side effects. Heroin has no side effects, except easily-treated constipation. Now here's the really big news: Heroin is not as addictive as everyone seems to think, and, when it is used strictly as an analgesic for physical pain, it is not addictive at all. I know very few will agree with me, largely due to the Kathy Tait school of journalism in which she, and many others, wrote for years about "evil heroin." Well, folks, it's just a refinement of opium, eh, invented by the Bayer people for alcohol addiction. There's really a tiny demand for the stuff. It's the illegality that makes it's value go from $150 a kilogram in Columbia, or one of the "Stans" in Central Asia, to $150,000.00 per kilogram in Vancouver. The entire illegal drug industry is a huge hoax perpetrated by the many groups who have a vested interest in the continued illegality. And here's the solution for prisons: Treat these drugs like the medications they are. Have clinics in the prisons where prisoners can line up for their daily injections, if they can demonstrate that they are addicted. Many would "age-out" at around fifty years old.(Heroin works as an analgesic in seniors, but the euphoric benefits are vastly diminished.) More would become bored with the whole thing. Part of the charm of heroin is the sub-cultural pride it fosters in users. When the state supplies it, it loses some of this charm. I have before me an article published about six years ago in the Vancouver Sun (if the Sun will allow the copyright infraction) by reporter, Murray Whyte : "Seventy percent of the 654 deaths in B.C. attributed to heroin doses between 1984 and 1993 were not caused solely by the drug, according to a Simon Fraser University graduate student. But Michael Brandt, a criminology student, said in a study released Tuesday that "heroin was singled out in the autopsy reports because of the mythology surrounding the drug," a mythology he says portrays heroin as 'evil.' According to him, the deaths were caused by a variety of factors, such as hepatitis, HIV, liver disease and consumption of deadly drug cocktails. "These people were sick and diseased, and it seems that heroin was only the final pharmacological insult that pushed them over the edge," he said. In the remaining 30 percent of the cases he investigated, Brandt found that high drug purity did cause death... "If you want to make a drug dangerous, criminalize it," Brandt said. "It drives it underground where it can't be controlled."

stupid