Wendy Stueck, Vancouver, B.C. (Globe and Mail) - The RCMP commissioned “critiques” of Vancouver’s controversial supervised injection site in an effort to counteract positive research findings about the facility, says a Vancouver legal advocacy group.
Internal documents obtained through access-to-information requests show the RCMP commissioned at least two critiques from academics at a time when a growing number of reports from respected scientific journals pointed to benefits, including a reduction in drug-related deaths, from the site, Pivot Legal Society spokesman Doug King said Tuesday.
Pivot will release Wednesday details of Insite-related correspondence and ask the Auditor-General to investigate whether the RCMP paid for the research, Mr. King said.
“We have confirmation from people who wrote the articles that they were paid,” Mr. King said. “We have documents that show the RCMP requested the articles.
“The question is, did the RCMP pay for the articles – and we’ll be asking the Auditor-General to look into that.”
Asked late Tuesday evening why the reports were commissioned, an RCMP spokeswoman confirmed the Mounties were involved in research, but reserved further comment.
“I can say that, yes, we were involved in some type of research into supervised injection sites. But that’s as far as I can go,” Constable Annie Linteau said. She wouldn’t say who paid for the studies, or why they were sought.
The RCMP-commissioned critiques include a widely publicized 2007 study by Colin Mangham, the director of research for the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, Mr. King said.
That study questioned other studies’ findings of a reduction in “public disorder” as a result of Insite.
Pivot’s allegations seem certain to heighten what has already been a lengthy and often bitter fight over Insite, which opened in 2003 as a pilot project and allows drug users to inject heroin and cocaine with clean needles and under the supervision of a nurse.
The facility’s right to exist has been challenged by the federal Conservative government. Health Minister Tony Clement has said the clinic’s $3-million annual budget would be better spent funding drug-treatment centres.
Mr. Mangham, reached Tuesday evening, said the RCMP commissioned his report but didn’t have any control over the findings.
Highly critical of other academic reports on the issue, Mr. Mangham said the RCMP wanted “a second opinion.”
“I was asked to research and provide an independent critique,” said, adding that health officials on the public payroll “certainly couldn’t have said what I said.”
5 responses so far ↓
1 RCMP Watch // Oct 9, 2008 at 10:00
RCMP tactics under fire
Police accused of trying to sway public opinion
Suzanne Fournier, The Vancouver Province
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society is demanding the federal auditor-general investigate the RCMP’s role in trying to negatively skew public and political perceptions of Vancouver’s Insite supervised-injection facility.
Armed with six internal e-mails showing the RCMP paid for two negative studies and then tried to obscure its own role in the research, Pivot lawyer Doug King also yesterday revealed a deliberate RCMP bid to influence a CBC show by asking police officers to call in with criticisms of Insite.
The e-mails also show RCMP tried to influence Conservative MPs to shift away from harm reduction as a drug strategy.
King pointed out that federal Health Minister Tony Clement has repeatedly cited the RCMP research as evidence the largely positive peer-reviewed research on Insite was wrong.
“The RCMP are supposed to be acting as peace officers for the citizens of Canada, and we think it is an abuse of public funds for the RCMP to fund a cynical critique of health-based research,” King said.
In one e-mail exchange, former RCMP Const. Chuck Doucette of “E” division in B.C. reported to his superiors that one of the studies “has now been published . . . as per our request, the report has no reference to the RCMP.” The RCMP-backed studies commissioned in 2006, one by Colin Mangham, director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, and the other by Simon Fraser University criminologist Garth Davies, are at odds with more than 20 academic studies that found Insite has cut back drug-overdose deaths and checked soaring HIV rates in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
In May 2008, Doucette advised 17 e-mail recipients, including Vancouver police, RCMP and the author of one of the studies, to swamp CKNW’s Bill Good with negative calls about Insite.
In another e-mail, RCMP Insp. Lise Crouch, in charge of the RCMP Drugs and Organized Crime Awareness Service, says that RCMP lobbying seemed to be working: “The MPs that spoke to us at our meeting indicated that was the direction they wanted to go in.” Yesterday, RCMP Const. Annie Linteau, spokeswoman for E division, said she hadn’t seen the e-mails but insisted “it’s not unusual for us to do research on a semi-regular basis.” “We’re not academic re-searchers. We’re not scientists. We rely on outside experts quite often. We hire and consult with people to conduct research for us.” Linteau said it was just coincidental that the RCMP-funded research was negative toward Insite, “although we do not support the legalization of any criminally illicit substance or anything that encourages its use.” sfournier@the province.com
2 RCMP Watch // Oct 9, 2008 at 10:06
RCMP attempted to discredit Insite, Pivot Legal Society says
David Hogben, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, October 09, 2008
The Pivot Legal Society has asked federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser to examine whether the RCMP exceeded its law-enforcement mandate by commissioning studies into Vancouver’s supervised injection site.
Pivot lawyer and spokesman Doug King on Wednesday revealed RCMP e-mails indicating the national police force commissioned reports researching Insite.
“The RCMP Act gave the RCMP a mandate to act as peace officers for the citizens of Canada. Using public funds entrusted to them to fund a cynical critique of health-based research clearly does not fall within this mandate,” King said. RCMP E Division spokeswoman Annie Linteau confirmed the RCMP paid for the four studies.
“We do research on a regular basis on a variety of topics and issues. So this is no different,” she said.
One of the reports paid for by the RCMP was written by anti-harm reduction activist Colin Mangham. Federal Health Minister Tony Clement referred to Mangham’s report when he argued academic research into supervised injection sites was deeply divided.
Mangham’s report found Insite responsible for “little or no reduction in transmission of blood-borne diseases or public disorder, no impact on overdose deaths in Vancouver.”
One e-mail, written by then-RCMP Const. Chuck Doucette, states: “Dr. Mangham’s report has now been published. This e-mail contains a link to the web page for the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice and to his report. As per our request, the report has no reference to the RCMP.”
Linteau confirmed the RCMP paid $10,000 for that report and $5,000 for another. She could not say how much the RCMP paid for the other two reports.
Doucette left the RCMP in July 2007 and now is the vice-president of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, which opposes Insite and harm reduction as a primary method to limit the damage of illegal drug use.
King said he also wants an explanation of why Doucette required that the report have “no reference to the RCMP.”
Linteau said it “apparently had to do with Mr. Mangham publishing his research, or something like that.”
King, however, implied the RCMP did not want to be publicly connected with the report.
“They are trying to wade into the area of scientific research and use it as a tool to discredit Insite,” King said.
Meanwhile, about 30 Insite supporters swarmed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Wednesday night campaign rally at Vancouver’s Westin Bayshore hotel.
Amidst a heavy police presence, protesters unfurled a banner from the hotel roof reading “Mr. Harper, trust the evidence, Insite saves lives.” A gospel choir sang Amazing Grace.
“The scientists say it saves lives, and the B.C. Supreme Court says it is a health care facility, and people who inject drugs deserve a right to health care,” said longtime Strathcona resident Gillian Maxwell.
At last month’s fifth anniversary of Insite’s opening, a group of eminent physicians and researchers sharply criticized Clement and Harper for their desire to close the harm reduction facility.
Supporters — who include Mayor Sam Sullivan and Premier Gordon Campbell — say it prevents overdoses of drugs and the spread of HIV-AIDS, reduces the number of people injecting drugs publicly and provides a safer environment for female drug users.
Other RCMP correspondence obtained through Freedom of Information legislation refers to British Columbia’s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS as the “Centre for Excrements.” Linteau said she could not comment on that e-mail because she had not yet read it.
The Harper government said in June it would appeal a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the site to remain open indefinitely because it provides a form of health care to which drug users have a right.
The site allows drug users to take their drugs in a safe environment where they can receive treatment for health problems associated with drug use.
Neither Clement nor Doucette returned telephone calls Wednesday.
3 RCMP Watch // Oct 9, 2008 at 10:10
RCMP defends hiring experts to review Insite research
Wendy Stueck, Globe and Mail
October 9, 2008
Vancouver — Hiring academic experts to review research is part of being an “effective and impartial police force,” an RCMP spokeswoman said yesterday.
The practice helps determine whether findings are accurate and supported and “goes for all subjects, not just supervised-injection sites,” said Constable Annie Linteau of B.C.’s E Division.
Constable Linteau was responding to allegations by Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society that the RCMP commissioned research to discredit Insite, Vancouver’s controversial safe-injection site.
Pivot yesterday released internal RCMP correspondence that includes a reference to British Columbia’s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS as the “Centre for Excrements” and an e-mail from an RCMP officer hoping to stack an open-line radio show with supportive callers.
“I’ll bet that the Centre for Excrements could create a ‘peer-reviewed’ article about the highly increased prevalence of HIV and Hep C” resulting from the site, says a May 26, 2007, e-mail.
In another e-mail, dated May 5, 2008, RCMP Constable Chuck Doucette, since retired from the force, encourages more than a dozen contacts - including Colin Mangham, the author of a widely publicized 2007 report that questioned Insite’s effectiveness - to call a radio show on which Constable Doucette had been booked as a guest to discuss Insite.
“It would be great if you could be ready to phone in with your comments,” the e-mail says. “You know that the pro-Insite side will have people lined up to support it. Let’s try to get more calls in than they do.”
Pivot, a Vancouver advocacy group, obtained the e-mails through freedom-of-information requests.
Insite has operated since 2003 and allows drug users to inject heroin and cocaine under medical supervision. The federal Conservative government has launched an appeal of a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that declared federal drug laws preventing the clinic from operating are unconstitutional.
The RCMP has made no secret of its practice of commissioning academics to review research and spends about $1-million a year on such reports, Constable Linteau said.
The RCMP paid about $15,000 for two Insite-related reports commissioned in 2006 and published in 2007, she said. The reviews, according to the RCMP, “found the benefits of supervised injection sites being cited could not be supported by the research methods used.”
Pivot maintains that commissioning reports on Insite, which has been cast as a public-health issue, is outside the RCMP’s crime-related mandate, and it has asked the Auditor-General to look at whether the use of public funds for the research is appropriate.
There has been discussion about opening supervised-injection sites in other locations, such as Prince George, and it is relevant to the RCMP’s policing mandate to review research around supervised-injection sites, Constable Linteau said.
The e-mails highlight the highly charged debate over harm reduction and Insite, which critics maintain does little or nothing to discourage drug use.
4 Deepthroat // Oct 9, 2008 at 15:57
I think it is entirely inappropriate for our cops to be funding any type of study. That is a government responsibility. They should keep to enforcing the laws and not foray into the political arena. What other studies have drained funds away from enforcement?
If they want to poll residents in an area to see what crime concerns are, it should be done through the city councils and not by them.
5 RCMP Watch // Oct 10, 2008 at 10:32
Harper dodges questions on RCMP’s anti-Insite research
Matt Kieltyka and Irwin Loy, Vancouver 24 Hours
October 9, 2008
Stephen Harper did his best to dodge jabs by the local media yesterday as the federal election drags into its final rounds.
When asked what he thought of the RCMP funding anti-Insite research with taxpayer dollars, the conservative leader – surrounded by a blue-clad mod chanting “Harper! Harper!” during a media conference at Richmond’s Delta Vancouver Airport hotel – did his best to duck the question.
“I asked [Health Minister Tony] Clement to undertake a full range of reviews of that particular issue and he came back with a recommendation the government is following,” Harper said. “When it comes to drug use, we want to make sure that we expend our resources on treatment and prevention.”
Harper was careful to make no mention of the controversy surrounding e-mails that suggest Tory MP’s consulted with Vancouver RCMP officials who commissioned studies critical of Vancouver’s supervised injection site.
On Wednesday, the Pivot Legal Society accused the Mounties of hiring criminologists to critique existing research on the supervised injection site.
RCMP spokesperson Const. Annie Linteau told 24 hours that the force did nothing wrong and routinely “conduct research on a variety of topics and issues” that may affect policing.
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