Archive for the tag "Canada"

Canadian government calls in the executioner (30/05/08)

I ended my last post on an optimistic note. I should have known better. Canada’s health minister is sharpening the guillotine, and hopes to chop down North America’s only supervised injecting site despite a court ruling that the execution would be unconstitutional.
“In my opinion, supervised injection is not medicine; it does not heal the [...]

Stay of execution for Canada’s life saving injection room (29/05/08)

Drug Warriors have been gloating about the imminent closure of North America’s only supervised injecting site for drug addicts. (”The injection site is expected to close next month,” reported one conservative group. “Congratulations to members who have worked so hard to keep the pressure on the powers to be to close down this madly insane [...]

Can Canada save its safe injecting experiment from the politicians’ axe? (03/05/08)

Vancouver is the only city in North America that provides a safe place for addicts to shoot up in. The local government thinks it’s a good idea. The national government doesn’t. So they’re sticking their oar in to undermine the project, according to local researchers.
“Scientists accuse Tories of ‘despicable’ interference”, yells a headline in the [...]

Canada could inject sense into Ukraine’s HIV response (18/04/08)

A Canadian group has just been holding a pow-wow on HIV prevention in Ukraine. The Winnipeg Free Press notes that Winnipeg’s the right place to be holding these discussions because the city is home to so many people whose roots are in Ukraine.
In fact, it’s appropriate in another way. Ukraine’s HIV risk looks a [...]

Canadian cops support safe injecting, not (04/04/08)

The Canadian city of Victoria (not Vancouver, sorry) is still dithering over a home for its needle exchange programme: no-one wants it in their back yard. British Columbia’s top health official has a solution: open supervised injecting sites around the city. The cops are not too pleased.
In an editorial in the British Columbia Medical Journal, [...]

Importing HIV: does it matter? (26/03/08)

For 15 years, the United States has tried to bar its doors to immigrants with HIV. Like most decisions related to HIV in the States, that one was motivated more by political expediency than by common sense. It seemed to play to fears that if immigrants with HIV came to the States, they’d start spreading [...]

Vancouver’s needle exchange is homeless (25/03/08)

Drug use and homelessness go together in many cities around the world. The Canadian city of Vancouver, for many years a shining example of sensible drug policy, is no exception. Now, however, it’s the city’s much-vaunted needle exchange programme that is being thrown onto the streets according to Cindy Harnett of the Times Colonist.
The [...]

Named reporting: scientists can’t manage it (21/02/08)

Public health scientists love to whinge that no-one listens to us. We wring our hands endlessly over what we can do to better communicate the results of research to policy makers and the public. And yet a new study suggests that some scientists can’t even report their own names and e-mail addresses correctly. And the [...]