Nancy Pelosi: “I appreciate his offer of supporting mandated treatment programs, and I do believe that treatment on demand is the…”

“I appreciate his offer of supporting mandated treatment programs, and I do believe that treatment on demand is the answer to reducing substance abuse in our country. But he spent a good deal of his time talking about the Montreal study, and Julie Bruneau and others who worked on that. I want to call to the attention of my colleagues the op-ed by Julie Bruneau and Martin Schechter, her colleague in making the Montreal study. In this op-ed, in their own words, they say, As the author of the study, we must point out that these officials have misinterpreted our results. A study conducted last year and published in the Lancet, the British medical journal, found that 29 cities worldwide where programs were in place, HIV infection dropped by an average of 5.8 percent a year among drug users. In 51 cities that had no needle exchange plans, where they had no exchange programs, 5.9 percent a year was the increase in HIV spread. In Canada, as a result of these studies, the same study that our colleague is citing in opposition to our position, the authors of the study he cites, the Montreal study says, in Canada, local governments acted on our research by expanding needle exchanges and adding related services.”