Saskatchewan is Catching up

If you live and work in Saskatchewan and work with key populations at-risk or affected by HIV, you would know that things are happening. We do have increasing rates of HIV BUT this is due to increased testing, more people at-risk actually being tested, and accessing care; we are really just catching up after years of lower than expected rates. Also, in Saskatchewan, First Nations and Inuit Health fund HIV programming on First Nations reserves, and there ARE reserves in Saskatchewan with Needle Exchange Programs, and some for more than a decade. The federal health minister may not state that she or her department supports clean needle distribution, but it is happening, we’re just not supposed to ask any questions related to Harm Reduction for any programs that have ‘federal’ attached to them. Canada has a long way to go in addressing HIV and the people that HIV affects and this is not going to change with the current Health Minister’s leadership and government Anti-caring strategies.

It's Time To Take A Stand

As a person living with HIV I found this article revealing. I know Ms Davis and she is a caring and respected individual. The one thing that did grab my attention about this article was the fact that the rate of new infections is increasing. I think that the clean needle program is only "one" aspect of reducing the infection rates. Thanks to Gordon Campbell and Co many Aids front line services like Aids Vancouver etc have seen their budgets cut, further adding more misery to this was the recent cuts to those on provincial disability. The facts are that more people are going to get sick and some will not seek out treatment. I asked one person why they would not seek treatment and that person told me that dealing with the entire system is "mind boggling". I may not agree but that person does have a point. Current government idealogies, policies and the like are clearly the wrong way to proceed in combating HIV/Aids. Like Ms Davis mentions at the end of this article, "One day, if the Canadian public gets itself together, we can vote them out". I agree and the sooner the better.

Vienna Declaration

No country has signed the Vienna Declaration.

Why sure. Free needles

Free needles for those who had a choice as to use drugs or not and those with diabetes who had no choice have to pay for their needles and drugs to keep living. Does this seem a little backwards to you? It sure does to me.

popper

Yes, diabetes treatments should be more accessible and less expensive, especially for the poor, who are more prone to diabetes problems in the first place.

However, how many times does it need to be said: Addiction is not a choice.

Saving drug addicts who deal 'n steal - that's the perception

It's hard to make palatable the prospect of spending public money to save drug addicts, who are forced by their chosen habits to rob the rest of us of about $10k worth of cherished household goods a year and more. Frankly, I'd feel better about safe injections if there were secure facilities to house addicts and prevent them from robbing me. I pass no moral judgment. Gosh knows, we all have varying degrees of pain and suffering the brain-dead medical establishment won't properly address. I just object to the stealing, which quite often involves physical violence. Strangely, in my experience, anyway, when you say the word, 'victim,' to these characters, they invariably think you're referring to them!

Figured I'd share

I wrote Rob Nicholson a while back about how I thought the government was being short sighted in opposing the Safe Injection site in Vancouver. I am a former resident and I would say that the site has done more good than harm from I what I had seen while I was still living there. Conventional approaches to dealing with drugs will not work in Vancouver, especially not for the issues surrounding addiction. I suggested the minister spend time in the city before towing the party line. This was his response.

Dear Mr. Stedmann:

Thank you for your correspondence concerning Insite, the Vancouver Safe Injection Site. I regret the delay in responding.

As you may be aware, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia has ruled on the matter of Insite in PHS Community Services Society v. Canada (Attorney General). This case raises important constitutional questions, and the Government of Canada believes that the Supreme Court of Canada should rule on this matter. As you may know, the Government filed an application seeking leave to appeal on February 5, 2010. As this case is currently before the court, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.

While I note your concerns, the Government recognizes that illegal drug use is a serious concern for many Canadians. It may interest you to know that more than $230 million over five years has been allocated to the National Anti-Drug Strategy, which focuses on three priority areas: preventing illicit drug use, treating those with illicit drug dependencies, and combating the production and distribution of illicit drugs.

Thank you again for writing and sharing your views on this important matter.

Yours truly,

The Honourable Rob Nicholson

Yes, well ...

making drugs legal would of course almost certainly stop all forms of dealin' an' stealin'.

Oh but, we really don't want that now do we? I mean, then what would we do with all those pages of draconian legislation, the overflowing jails (and the Happy Up they provide for the GDP), and the millions upon millons of dollars in budget to clean up the wild frontier? My oh my. Lions and tigers and bears.

Note:

My former post was directed towards ASKBiblitz.com, not Byrun.

Canadian Latitude

Except when it comes to fighters, tanks, ships, bombs and bullets.........anthing to promote The Rapture.

Why Canada’s drug policy won’t check addiction

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.12-health-rat-trap/

So?

So, many ideas on this topic. Today in Canada Hep-C is the killer, HIV is bad but Hep-C is now worse. I worked for a needle exchange for years. Harper and these ministers should be forced to watch the harm their policies do to their fellow humans. (Shame and stupid).
I'm Diabetic 3 shots a day plus 20 other R/X, I'm covered. Living in poverty is the trade off, oh well...
Imagine Harper with full power to kill us all, at will.
$23 billion for planes to kill a talaban on a bike, yet no needles based on a health need in our society.

Let's not drag the Charter and the UN into this

""The provision of clean needles is about the security of person. It's about right to healthcare, to be free from the impact of an epidemic," Davis said."

Wrong, Ms Davis. This is [b[]not[/b] about security of person, no matter how you stretch it. There is harm done by dirty needles certainly, but so is there harm done by clear rushing streams with "beaver fever" in them. Yet the government is not called upon to clean up the streams, but merely to warn the people against drinking from them. So too, is the government called to warn addicts against sharing needles. Or you enter into the minefield of what the provision is - provide needles only? Ensure they use them? Lock them up under medical direction to ensure they use them correctly? What's the difference? None of these solutions is good, none is effective.

It's for others who care more, to enforce that practice with the addicts they care about. And, frankly, that's not me any more. After more than 25 years of dealing with my ill school-chum, I recognize that I can't help him any more than 10% of the time, and he's still going to live an unhealthy lifestyle whether he uses drugs or not, because that's the way he's been for more than 50 years.

Which is why Rick W's quote from Bruce Alexander makes so much sense. If I could just help John enter a taste of culture.....

Glory day coming?

If one goes out on a limb and assumes that the core Harper gang is making preparations for The Rapture, then these policies begin to make sense.

Divisiveness will mean clear divisions between those who will and will not be zapped up to heaven on Judgement Day. Prisons will mean safe containment of the latter when chaos and the clarion calls descend. Compliant minions and bolstered armies will ease the pains of transition.

Why would he expend precious resources on protecting the environment or funding assistance to gays, drug addicts and the godless masses? Only those who can help him consolidate power and advance his mission shall find favour.

Still, with that pesky election lurking, there must be balance; he has to throw some crumbs. All in good time...

Yes, I see it.

Quote of a quote

"The only way we’ll ever touch the problem of addiction is by developing and fostering viable culture.”

And that's not going to happen unless a mighty grass-roots movement makes it happen. Everything we get served in school, in the media, in the workplace, 'out and about', goes in the opposite direction. Everything we encounter outside our own door is geared at one purpose only: to send us back behind that door with less than we had when we walked out through it. Everyone wants his cut. Everyone wants to 'make money', and whatever that takes will happen. People spend money when they're unhappy, so attempts are made at making us unhappy, fearful, devoid of self-esteem and self-confidence, culture, rootedness or even connection to the ground we stand on.

It takes never-ending vigilance to protect against the onslaught of other people's wants. Not to deny that there is such a thing as fair exchange. It's the fairness that one must be vigilant about. Not to deny there is such a thing as generosity. It's the direction and intent of generosity one must be vigilant about. Be awake and aware. So many of us grow up with no provision for defending against the jungle we will live in. In fact, for many of us, the growing up is part of the jungle. Mom and Dad have limited time for us, because they want things and security for themselves, sometimes at the cost of our wholeness. We get used to be of less or no account. The African children who get their own song at birth are wealthier at least in that regard, even if they never own a pair of shoes in their life. What makes us human? To know what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what we are de-selecting by every single option we exercise. You can't miss what you never had, but strangely, you still do. We carry a blueprint of who we could be but aren't, and it hurts. If we want things to get better, we need to do something that can fill that gap. It needs to be inclusive and not too terribly rule-bound, and it can't be something that could be taken over and made profitable, nor can it look dangerous in a way that will give an excuse to shut it down. It has to meet the most stringent criteria for unobtrusive subversion, not in the state-political sense, but in the upsetting the economical exploitation applecart sense. Any ideas?

'The Empathic Civilization' (Part First)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-rifkin/the-empathic-civilization_b_416589.html
'The Empathic Civilization': Rethinking Human Nature in the Biosphere Era
- Jeremy Rifkin

Extract:
The problem runs deeper than the issue of finding new ways to regulate the market or imposing legally binding global green house gas emission reduction targets. The real crisis lies in the set of assumptions about human nature that governs the behavior of world leaders--assumptions that were spawned during the Enlightenment more than 200 years ago at the dawn of the modern market economy and the emergence of the nation state era.
The Enlightenment thinkers--John Locke, Adam Smith, Marquis de Condorcet et. al.--took umbrage with the Medieval Christian world view that saw human nature as fallen and depraved and that looked to salvation in the next world through God's grace. They preferred to cast their lot with the idea that human beings' essential nature is rational, detached, autonomous, acquisitive and utilitarian and argued that individual salvation lies in unlimited material progress here on Earth.
The Enlightenment notions about human nature were reflected in the newly minted nation-state whose raison d'être was to protect private property relations and stimulate market forces as well as act as a surrogate of the collective self-interest of the citizenry in the international arena. Like individuals, nation-states were considered to be autonomous agents embroiled in a relentless battle with other sovereign nations in the pursuit of material gains.
It was these very assumptions that provided the philosophical underpinnings for a geopolitical frame of reference that accompanied the first and second industrial revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries. These beliefs about human nature came to the fore in the aftermath of the global economic meltdown and in the boisterous and acrimonious confrontations in the meeting rooms in Copenhagen, with potentially disastrous consequences for the future of humanity and the planet.
If human nature is as the Enlightenment philosophers claimed, then we are likely doomed. It is impossible to imagine how we might create a sustainable global economy and restore the biosphere to health if each and every one of us is, at the core of our biology, an autonomous agent and a self-centered and materialistic being.
Recent discoveries in brain science and child development, however, are forcing us to rethink these long-held shibboleths about human nature. Biologists and cognitive neuroscientists are discovering mirror-neurons--the so-called empathy neurons--that allow human beings and other species to feel and experience another's situation as if it were one's own. We are, it appears, the most social of animals and seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows.

'The Empathic Civilization' (Personal Conclusion)

It is difficult, for me at least, to imagine any world leader (except perhaps the leader of Bhutan) even entertaining Rifkin's assertion - especially the current Canadian PM and his coterie. Yet this, or some version thereof, must prevail or every approach is simply playing politics with the lives of others, or is at best a bandaid.