we must take this to the street Harper out

If you are looking for another voice of methadone consumer for your advisory, I can recommend someone, a young male in his late 20's, who has been a polysubstance user for 10 years and is now in recovery (still on the methadone program and doing well) and who is very articulate and well educated please let me know.

regards

Hi, Charlene ...

This project is effectively over. We have used up our funding and met our deadline. So, the advisor committee has been disbanded. However, we are looking for new and creative ways to utilise the information we have gathered - and new and creative ways to get funding! If the young man you referred to is interested in some type of involvement in harm reduction, please have him contact me using the “Contact Us” link on the home page of the web site.

Thanks for your interest ...

I was a participant in one of the focus groups. It is great to see the results. Harm reduction kept me alive, so lets keep working to get our voices heard. Mr. Harper needs to be shown fthat addicts can be productive members os society, if allowed to be.

Hey Rob ..

I am really pleased that you have taken the time to look at the report ...

We are going to have to work hard to get harm reduction on the agenda for the next election (soon, I hope) and get politicians to publicly support it. It amazing how hostile many of them still are toward proven programs like needle exchange and how willingly they embrace the idea of stupid and counterproductive things like mandatory minimums, which do not work. And how much public support they get for their often outrageous rants. Users have special knowledge. They must got together and speak truth to power, and they will have to find a way to do it without government money.

Thanks Walter et al for this great report.

At one time I was very proud to speak about our Canadian approach to Harm Reduction but that has diminished over the last few years due to our shift in attitudes. I hope that this sort of report will be heard loud and clear by the government folks that need to continue pushing Harm Reduction since Canada is highly regarded as one of the true leaders and inspiration for the rest of the world.

I am currently in China working with heroin users and HIV/HCV prevention and my Chinese co-workers always praise the Canadian approach to dealing with health issues - lets keep that going so that other countries can always use Canada as a reference point when pushing for change within their governments.

Thanks again for the great report - very useful and concise...I will share it with my co-workers here...

High Walter!

It's your Uncle form Vancouver,BC

Keep Up the good works inspite of

the recent Fed Election

It's astounding how few harm reductionists actually VOTE

My duess is that we'll be having to prove our point once again to the highest Court Judges that will listen

to the criteria for our afe Injection site out here on the West Coast

Kindly RSVP Unk care of the Hiv/IDU

Consumers' Board by emailas follows:

cnsbd @mdi.ca

Harm Reduction Works,& so does Prevention education & awareness on HIV-AIDs,STD testing,safer sex practices & condom promotion.As a PLWHA HIV-AIDs Education & awareness speaker i realize more money needs to be spent in these area's if we are to slow the spread of HIV-AIDs!50-75% of ALL NEW transmissions R by peoples that do NOT know they are HIV+!Could this be you?Do YOU KNOW your status?GET TESTED FOR STD's TODAY!!!!james gough ,sudbury ont canada HIV+ 7 yrs & still "too healthy"to iniate ART.

We need to get the community more informed on harm reduction. To let them know that by using the harm reduction program we are stopping the spread of diseases and are making the addicts safer.

Help!!!!! Abbotsford, British Columbia made an ammendment to its Zoning Bylaws to outright prohibit specific harm reduction services. non-profit organizations, private businesses and care givers have had their ability to provide reasonable health care to the community of Abbotsford severely restricted by ammending the Zoning Bylaw which now prohibits needle exchanges, mobile exchanges and safe injection sites. Most of the intravenous drug users in Abbotsford area are street entrenched with no access to services else where. You know what happens now!!!!! Please let others know to stay away from such an irresponsible community! Someone from Abbotsford may come near your children! Make the media aware!

I have used the services you have offered many years ago. I am currently on the methadone clinic and have been sober from alcohol for 11 months, I attend AA meetings 3-5 times a week and am back to feeling so much better and I need to do some service work give back what I was given, Do you need Volunteers and where can I go to get information and have been a resident of the north end all my life so I have seen everything, shooting galleries, crackshacks so on. Please give me some infor if you can. email: sandymel_@hotmail.com

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Have a great day.

Very proud to have become a small part of the harm reduction movement.I became involved with the Hiv-IDU consumers board based in the lower east side of Vancouver.B.C..I am also involved with the Washington needle depot.It has been my pleasure to work with many gifted and brilliant people in this peer driven atmosphere.I will continue to give my all toward the hopes of saving even just one young persons life and future.The harm reduction movement must continue.There is a great need for wisdom in Vancouver eastside.To all those involved in our fight.RESPECT!!!! HAPPY 2011 PEACE:

STUCK IN EAST VANCOUVER::BRETT DAVIS BEST!!!

Hi all, this is David and I am the chairman of the board of SOLID and an outreach worker on the “Ho Van” at PEERS here in Victoria, BC. Another hat I wear I is that of a 4th year social work student and father of three. I am a peer at SOLID and an ally at PEERS to which I try to work diligently for both groups. I am a supporter of Harm Reduction (I guess that goes without saying) and have used my place in society to support these organizations. In some of the comments I have read in this site I see that not much has changed in the short comings in service delivery in our city. We still don’t have a fixed needle exchange. Well we did have one but it was shut down. We don’t have a safe injection site. What we do have is a bunch of different service providers trying to work together to tackle a large population that has very diverse needs and we have had to face continued financial cuts from most of our funding pools. One agency I work for is now running on 1/3 of the budget of just a few years ago, that and still try to offer all the same services. Not easy and that agency is now very employee light making those that are left pull double and triple duty. Much of the problems we face are faced by our colleagues across this country as the conservatives push the moral agenda espoused in their ideology. The question I have about this is “when is it moral to let someone die when they could be kept safe”? We as a society are letting our fellow human beings die because we don’t stand up for the rights of the most vulnerable. Shame on us. I have been working toward a practice in addictions counselling and working here on the streets of Victoria has been eye opening, even for an ex junkie like myself. Harm Reduction I have found is as important a human right as anything the moral “right” can quote and in my opinion needs to be addressed in such a forum. It is immoral to let people continue to suffer the shortcomings of politicians and political ideologies, we need to take that power away for people like Stephen Harper who has made it his personal goal to make it difficult for harm reduction to operate outside of abstinence based treatment options. I came from the NA camp and had to overcome the ideology espoused in abstinence to appreciate what harm reduction is and how it operates in both continued “safe” substance use and even when abstinence is the goal. This “brain washing” that is part of the 12 step programs work for some people but statistically misses the mark for the majority of people. Please don’t get me wrong, I do respect the contribution for 12 step groups as a treatment option but as the director of Victoria’s Foundation Houses put it “we should let addicts die if that is what it takes to make them hit bottom”. This last quote was from an interview I had with him two years ago. The debate between these two schools of thought has makes me shake my head. Its this kind of arguing that keeps our shared goal of helping our fellow humans from eventually being realized. This schism gives ammunition to those that would love to see all funding cut and put this topic back in the dark ages of ideological history where addicts and alcoholics were outcasts of society, people to be stoned or killed for having that oh so human frailty of substance or process addiction (use).

In summary I would like to thank Walter for speaking at the symposium in Nanaimo this last fall and hope I get to meet you again someday. You have so many great insights into what and how harm reduction needs and should be approached.