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2008
April 27, 2008 - University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd’s weekly letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on drug research haven’t garnered a response from the federal government, but others around the world are reading. “I’ve received many, many e-mails from people all over Canada,” said Boyd, a drug policy researcher. On Feb. 1, Boyd, along with the Beyond Prohibition Coalition of Vancouver, launched a website at www.educatingharper.com to inform the prime minister and concerned Canadian citizens about drug policy and harm reduction. At the same time, she began a letter-writing campaign. Each week she heads to the post office with a letter and an accompanying article, pays for postage and sends it off to the Prime Minister’s Office. “I haven’t received a letter back, not even a form letter. But I would hope ... just out of sheer curiosity, that he would look at his mail now and then to see what Canadians are thinking,” Boyd said. She has 52 articles planned out, a weekly reading list that can be found on her website. The first articles deal with the failures of drug prohibition and criminal justice initiatives. The drug researcher, on sabbatical this year, says she was outraged by the federal government’s crime bill C-26, which cracks down on drug traffickers — and adds mandatory minimum sentences for growing marijuana — as well as budget funding increases for police enforcement with only nominal amounts for harm reduction and treatment. More than 78 per cent of federal drug funding goes toward criminal justice initiatives, while only three per cent was allocated to harm reduction, Boyd said. That allocation flies in the face of sound academic research, she said. It convinced her that Harper needed to do his homework. In her letters she includes 25 peerreviewed studies of Vancouver’s supervised injection site Insite, where people can inject drugs with health professionals on hand to offer everything from treatment for overdoses to addiction counselling referrals. The federal government rejected the Vancouver Health Authority’s request for a 3 ⁄ year extension for Insite and instead in October 2007 gave the operation only a six-month lease on life. “The [research is] well balanced methodologically, sound, with no exaggeration or claims that can’t be supported,” she said. Most researchers believe Insite has been a tremendous success, she said. However, others point to Vancouver’s seedy and troubled Downtown Eastside as overcome by crime and drugs and general chaos, all made worse by Insite. But Boyd argues that crime and public disorder have not increased because of the supervised injection site. “When I walk through Downtown Eastside what I see is the result of extreme poverty and marginalization and cutbacks, gentrification,” Boyd said. “We should be ashamed we don’t provide affordable housing for people, adequate social supports, mental health supports.” Given a chance, Boyd would like to try to convince the prime minister to allow Victoria and other Canadian cities to run supervised injection sites. The Vancouver Island Health Authority is considering applying to Health Canada for an exemption from Canada’s drug laws to pilot a supervised injection site as a research project. Boyd says supervised injection sites are a unique way to reduce drug overdose deaths and hospital emergency visits, to prevent or reduce the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and to put drug users in contact with social services and health care providers, as well as detox and treatment programs and addiction counselling. “I truly believe they serve a good purpose,” Boyd said. 2007 Engaging Disability 2007 (ED) is a disability institute that will gather students, community members, government employees and university faculty to think about, discuss, learn and re-vision the meaning of disability. Over a 9-month period individuals active in political, cultural, social, scholarly and artistic realms of disability will be invited to share their thoughts on issues of disability policy, the social construction of disability, contested illness, in/visibility of disability, unapparent disabilities, chronic disabling conditions, disease-based impairment, gendered aspects of disability, participatory methods in disability research, discourse and policy analysis. ED comprises an opening panel session (March 12), a six-week lecture series (March 19-April 30, 2007), a two-week Summer Institute (June, 2007), a fall session university course for graduate and senior undergraduate students (September-December, 2007), an ongoing film series (April-November, 2007), a community book club, and art exhibits in local venues. International, national and provincial initiatives highlight the current political presence of disability. The August 2006 UN treaty on the rights of individuals with disabilities, the major review of mental health policy, Out of the Shadows at Last: Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada, by a Senate Committee chaired by Michael Kirby published in May 2006, and the current BC government’s formulation of a 10-year strategy on disability, are all examples of how disability is a contemporary issue in the public arena. ED will be a forum for exploring, broadening and re-conceptualizing dominant understandings of disability by providing opportunities for participants to engage with political, cultural, social, scholarly and artistic interpretations of disability. 2006 September 28, 2006 - “Moving beyond AntiViolence to ProVisioning: Supporting the work of women's organizations in the 21st century economy." Keynote Speaker Dr. Marge Reitsma-Street April 18, 2006 - “Recovering Geographies? Mental Health, Gardening and the Arts”
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