INSITE - notes on the conservatives in the Van Sun

Conservatives confuse science and moralizing
Ideology has always driven drug policy in Canada, as demonstrated in the federal government's attitude toward Insite
Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, September 01, 2007

In an editorial directed at the federal government's mendacious attempts to discredit the science surrounding Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site, University of Toronto medical professor Stephen Hwang notes that "the health of the nation is placed in peril if our leaders ignore crucial research findings simply because they run contrary to a rigid policy agenda driven by ideology or fixed beliefs."

Although Hwang's comments, which were endorsed by 133 medical and scientific experts, were published in the current issue of the online journal Open Medicine, they could just as easily have been written a century ago.

For ideology has always driven drug policy, and is in fact responsible for the very existence of our laws concerning recreational drugs. One hundred years ago there were no such laws, but ideological, political and economic concerns, along with an unhealthy dose of racism, led to the enactment of laws that still exist today.

More than two dozen studies published in top-flight journals have all found that Vancouver's supervised injection facility is associated with positive outcomes. There is absolutely no research contradicting these findings

And British Columbia has always been ground zero in policies concerning illicit drugs. Today, Insite receives all the headlines, but a century ago, it was Vancouver's Chinatown riot that resulted in the first federal drug laws in North America.

In the middle of the 19th century, B.C. played host to an influx of Chinese immigrants, most of whom worked on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Although many people supported such immigration since the Chinese were seen as industrious labourers who were willing to work for low wages, things changed drastically after the railway was built.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, B.C. experienced a recession and many individuals -- and in particular, many trade unions -- blamed the inability of white workers to find employment on the presence of the Chinese.

This anti-Chinese animus led to implementation of the Chinese head tax and the formation of the Asiatic Exclusion League, which raised the spectre of the "yellow peril" and demanded an end to Asian immigration. Things reached a head 100 years ago this week when some 10,000 people, after hearing anti-Chinese speeches at Vancouver City Hall, marched on Chinatown in what would later be called the "anti-Asiatic riot."

In the aftermath, the deputy minister of labour (and future prime minister) William Lyon Mackenzie King visited Vancouver and discovered that among Chinese businesses seeking redress for damages were two opium dens. Many of the Chinese had brought opium smoking with them from China, though it was not generally considered a problem.

However, Mackenzie King's discovery of the opium dens led him to write a report about the riot, and within a few months, the minister of labour introduced a bill outlawing the possession and sale of opium: the Opium Act of 1908, the first federal anti-drug law in North America.

The bill passed with no debate, and so began Canada's, and North America's, punitive approach to dealing with recreational drugs. (The United States came late to the table, as it didn't enact its anti-drug legislation, the Harrison Act, until 1914.)

That the minister of labour, rather than the attorney-general, would introduce the law reveals that the legislation was aimed at quelling labour unrest rather than at protecting the health of the public.

Indeed, the Opium Act and its harsher successor legislation, the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act of 1911, were designed to counter the "yellow peril," and were uncommonly successful in that many Chinese were convicted under the laws and therefore presented less of a threat to the economic welfare of white British Columbians.

In addition to labour concerns, the laws also served to placate the burgeoning temperance movement, which portrayed drugs not so much as a threat to users' health as to the morality of the community. Those who adopted this ideology were only too happy to capitalize on anti-Chinese sentiments, and they emphasized that some white people frequented opium dens, a practice presented as a direct threat to Anglo-Saxon values.

Canada's original drug laws were therefore informed more by overt racism than by scientific research, and were also a response to the lobbying of an ideological movement that used racist attitudes to promote its own moralistic agenda. And if we fast forward 100 years, we see just how little things have changed.

At the same time Stephen Hwang's editorial appeared in Open Medicine, federal Health Minister Tony Clement addressed the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver, and his comments confirm that science plays no role in informing Conservative drug policy.

In response to questions about Insite, Clement stated: "There has been more research done, and some of it has been questioning of the research that has already taken place and questioning of the methodology associated with Insite. Clearly there is a public debate going on, and clearly there is an academic debate going on."

This is a patently false assertion. To date, there are more than two dozen studies on Insite published in top-flight journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, and all have found that Insite is associated with positive outcomes. There is absolutely no research contradicting these findings, which means that Clement is either ignorant or he's a liar, neither of which is acceptable for a minister of health.

Evidently, what Clement is relying on is an essay written by Colin Mangham of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, a Randy White-led group of anti-harm reduction ideologues that includes on its board at least two people who have been affiliated with Narconon, a Church of Scientology-related anti-drug program. (White himself has expressed enthusiasm for prison Narconon programs.)

As I argued previously, Mangham's piece is not a scientific paper, but is rather an error-riddled opinion piece published on a Drug Free America Foundation website. Mangham nevertheless thought highly enough of his shoddy work to write to the federal government about it, and evidently the feds are listening, which isn't surprising given that former Conservative MP White -- and now, the Church of Scientology -- obviously has the ear of the Conservatives.

Clearly, the Conservatives are grasping at anything they can to hoodwink people into believing that there really is a scientific debate about the impact of Insite. This strategy is not unique: Creationists have for years attempted to dupe people into believing that there is a scientific debate about the theory of evolution, and they have succeeded in convincing some politicians to endorse the teaching of creationism in schools.

Yet creationists' real concern is not with evolution -- most don't even know anything about the theory or about science -- but rather with what they believe to be the consequences of the theory: atheism and immorality. Creationism is primarily a response to the culture wars, to the belief that traditional values are under assault.

Similarly, those who oppose Insite seem most concerned with the loss of traditional values. It is no accident that the Drug Prevention Network board is composed primarily of people who describe themselves as social conservatives, and Mangham's opinion piece laments that harm reduction "purports to be values-neutral."

This isn't true, of course, but I have no doubt that Mangham and other members of the network believe it. The network and the Conservative government are concerned that Insite is one more example of the loss of traditional values in modern society, much as the temperance movement saw opium use as corrupting the values of the early 20th century.

The Conservative uneasiness with measures like Insite is therefore understandable, though not necessarily defensible. For here we must return to Stephen Hwang's editorial, and in particular to his comment that if policy-makers are going to oppose the interventions that science has found most efficacious, they ought to at least "make the basis for their actions explicit and transparent."

Indeed, if truth and honesty form any part of the Conservatives' pantheon of values, then they'll stop their mendacious attempts to discredit the science of Insite, and admit that their objections are moralistic rather than scientific. This, at least, would represent a moral advance over the temperance movement of a century ago.

But if the Conservatives refuse to do so -- if they refuse to admit that their position has nothing to do with science, and indeed conflicts with the best scientific evidence -- then they'll affirm that while scientific progress continues unimpeded, Conservative policy, and Conservative morality, are destined to die in dishonour.