Thank you for being here today.
I heard one of you say, and I was writing quickly but I think I got the essence, that sharing paraphernalia is a major source of disease transmission. I'm going to just read a brief quote from a submission we got from the senior policy analyst of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, where it said:
Substance abuse is a contributing factor for the criminal behaviour of 70% of people admitted to federal institutions. Because of the scarcity of needles and syringes in prison, people who inject drugs in prison, including those with addictions, are more likely to share injecting equipment than those in the community, thereby increasing their risk of contracting HIV and HCV.
Programs that ensure access to sterile injecting equipment are therefore an important component of a comprehensive approach to reducing the vulnerability of incarcerated people to HIV and HCV infection.
The best available evidence strongly suggests that in countries where prison-based needle and syringe programs exist, such programs reduce risk behaviour and disease, do not increase drug consumption or injecting, do not endanger staff or prisoner safety, and have other positive outcomes for the health of people in prison including increasing referrals of users to drug addiction treatment programs.
I'm just wondering if any of you would like to comment on that. Is that accurate or not accurate?