Research Roundup

Insite leads to fewer ODs, lower HIV rates

A prominent figure of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), Insite is the first and only legal supervised injection site for drug users in North America, providing drug users with clean syringes, healthcare professionals to supervise, immunisation, and recovery opportunities. The site has been a constant hotbed of discussion, protest, and research on drug use, prevention, and recovery.

For SFU criminology PhD candidate Ehsan Jozaghi, Insite was the topic for his masters thesis, and will be the upcoming topic for his PhD. Jozaghi’s master’s thesis examined how Insite is transforming cultural drug use in the Downtown Eastside, and how the services that this site provides have had such a positive impact on its clients.

Jozaghi found that Insite helped lower the rates of HIV in the Downtown Eastside, and that fewer drug overdoses were also taking place after Insite’s construction. The wailing of ambulance sirens is a noise that is beginning to lose some popularity in this vicinity, and not as many drug addicts can be seen populating the alleyways.

The research conducted by Jozaghi can be seen in publications such as International Journal of Drug Policy, and Canadian Graduate Journal of Sociology and Criminology.

Jozaghi explains how what stood out to him most was how a relatively small site like Insite can have such a tremendous impact on the community of the DTES, a neighbourhood that is home to roughly five thousand drug users. Facilities like Insite lower the spread of life-threatening diseases like HIV, and the services that it provides have also proven to be very cost-effective, which is why Jozaghi believes that “at least three more” Insites need to be set up in the Downtown Eastside.

Speaking to why Canada’s federal government is opposed to the services Insite provides. Jozaghi speculated this is because of the Bush administration’s war on drugs, a war that Stephen Harper has mimicked and applied to Canada and its laws.

Jozaghi believes that Harper and his Conservative government see Insite “as a criminal justice issue, and not as a health care issue,” creating an “ideological warfare” that overshadows the positive impact that places like Insite can have on communities.

For his PhD, Jozaghi will look at the theory of planned behavior, and how drug users in the DTES have different opinions towards Insite when compared to other drug users in BC.

Making criminals of Stanley Cup rioters the wrong approach

For many Vancouverites, the riots which occurred after the Canucks lost to the Bruins in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals is a touchy subject.

Long after the fires were quelled and store windows repaired, citizens were reminded of the riots on a daily basis as they were asked to turn their friends-made-rioters in to the police so that they could be properly punished. However, one SFU M.A. student’s thesis is challenging the city’s response to such violence, calling it cumbersome, slow, and incredibly costly.

“I was actually inspired to research this topic shortly after the London riots in the UK took place, the same year as the Vancouver Stanley cup riot,” said Tania Arvanitidis, an SFU M.A. student.

“The less serious young offenders were being diverted to restorative justice programs because there were not enough resources in the justice system to sentence them all formally, and because this provided better results for both offenders and victims in a lot of cases . . . It made me wonder why we weren’t adopting a similar approach, incorporating restorative alternatives and diversionary options.”

She believes that such the restorative justice process — where perpetrators are given the opportunity to meet and make reparations with their victims — would have been amply suited to the riots, as many of those arrested were young, first time offenders who wanted to make up for what they did.

Although Arvanitidis feels that restorative justice is the best alternative, that does not mean that the system is problem-free.

“There are downsides to restorative justice, too, the biggest probably being that the process must be voluntary,” spoke Arvanitidis. “Victims of crime suffer greatly, and meeting with an offender when they are not ready to, or meeting with an offender who does not want to take responsibility or apologize, can cause even more pain and trauma to the victim than they have already experienced.”

“I’m not arguing that traditional options have no purpose, nor that all rioters would be suitable for a restorative process, but that many would surely benefit if the option was available to them,” she concluded.