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August 05, 2009

The 'Creating a Culture of Prevention' forum

By David Ng

The 'Creating a Culture of Prevention' forum held at the Roundhouse in Vancouver on June 24th was excellent! In my opinion, it was still far too short, but it was such a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded people who are interested in the Four Pillars (Prevention, Treatment, Enforcement and Harm Reduction) Drug Strategy. In the light of the violent gang war that is currently being waged in Vancouver, there was a strong focus on prevention and enforcement, which goes hand in hand with treatment and harm reduction. These pillars might pertain more to the dealer side of this, which was what the session focused on.

None of the pillars alone will solve the problems created by the "War on Drugs", and it was interesting to see different insiders bring their experiences as academics, ex-gang members, and policy makers to the table to discuss the importance of prevention and enforcement as well as touching on harm reduction. My favorite line of the day was when Michael Chettleburgh said that "the war on drugs is the worst public policy since slavery" - a daring quote, but one that I personally think is accurate.

Myself (David Ng), Katherine Dodds, and Bevel Up street nurse James Tigchelaar came to the event together, and spent the afternoon discussing how to better make Bevel Up connect with all the things that we heard about at the forum, which is an ongoing initiative by the City of Vancouver.

The day-long 'Creating a Culture of Prevention' pilot event that happened earlier in the year on March 25 focused more on harm reduction, and speaker Gabor Mate talked about the four pillars being really one pillar (enforcement) and three straws. The consensus that day was that the other pillars prevention, harm reduction, and treatment really needed to have more resources allocated. The organizers put out a summary document of the afternoon break out sessions. Kat (Hello Cool World) and Caroline (street nurse) attended that day.

Summary Creating a Culture - June 2009
Workshop Ideas - March 25

I hope they keep having these events in Vancouver!

Tag(s): Bevel Up, Blogging, Health/Health Advocacy, Hello Cool World, Youth

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