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HIV/AIDS Legal Network Says PM Harper Needs Hard Dose of Reality |
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Written by Wire
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 |
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network called today on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to make evidence-based and potentially life-saving decisions to keep Vancouver's safe injection site open and to implement needle exchange programs in Canadian prisons.
"The Canadian government's head is in the sand on the problem of HIV among people who use drugs and prisoners," said Joanne Csete, Executive Director, during a press conference at the XVI International AIDS Conference. "Proven harm reduction measures such as Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection facility, are under threat of cancellation by Ottawa. In Canadian prisons, such measures are nonexistent - and people are paying the price with their lives."
The news conference also featured Dr. Julio Montaner, Director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and president-elect of the International AIDS Society, Diane Tobin of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Gillian Maxwell, spokesperson for Insite for Community Safety, and Jim Motherall, a former prisoner and founding co-chair of the Stony Mountain Penitentiary Health Awareness Group. |
