Public Safety committee  No, I would say it's not necessarily the case. Obviously most prisoners will have spent an amount of time in a provincial institution or another institution prior to coming to a federal penitentiary. It probably depends on what that other institution was prescribing for the perso

Public Safety committee  They talk about being withdrawn from drugs and feeling that they might go to the underground drug system in the institutions, obviously again raising the risk of—

Public Safety committee  I think it's uneven, as far as the support they're getting at that time. Many prisoners report to us they're not getting support at the time. Sometimes prisoners try to transfer to methadone and other drugs while in the institution, but it's often not seamless. In some cases peop

Public Safety committee  I'm absolutely saying that the services available around pain management for physical pain are not what they are in a community. It is not at all unusual for prisoners to be aggressively tapered off certain drugs. Kadian would be an example of a drug that prisoners are often tape

Public Safety committee  I think when you look at how needles and/or drugs get into prison, you have to look at who has access to the prisons. In terms of access, there would be people who work in the prisons, people who visit relatives and friends in the prisons, and people who come into the prisons to

Public Safety committee  So I think that when you figure out how drugs get in, it's very similar.

Public Safety committee  Sure. CSC has a drug formulary. It's basically a list of all the medications available for prescription in the institutions. So there will be certain drugs available in the community that would not be available on the drug formulary for reasons of their being potential security r

Public Safety committee  I would generally argue that for many prisoners their ability to physically exercise is limited. Many prisoners are for many hours of the day locked inside, locked in their cell. They do not necessarily always have access to those facilities—although there is access, there's no q

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry; could I just have the first part again? What strategy do you mean? Is it the drug strategy?

Public Safety committee  What I'm proposing is that an effective drug strategy would involve dealing with prisoners' pain management issues, and not purely physical pain management issues but pain management issues that basically speak to people's experience in some cases before they come into the instit

Public Safety committee  I'll just say that a comprehensive drug strategy in prison would include a review of pain management procedures and of the drug formulary that exists for prisoners; an increase in harm reduction services, including prison needle and syringe programs; an increased level of support

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I would like to start by thanking the committee for inviting me here to speak with you today. PASAN is a community-based organization that provides support and prevention education services to prisoners around infectious diseases, with a focus on HIV/AIDS and hepatit