SAFE VANCOUVER SITE FOR ADDICTS TO INJECT A FIRST IN N. AMERICA

Mayor Fears Facility Will Draw Canada's Addicts To City

This Canadian city will be the first in North America to offer
addicts a safe site to inject drugs, says a group of health care
advocates and injection drug users.

Funding, from both the private and public sector, will determine if
the facility is a "hole in the wall" or a comprehensive health
centre, says the Harm Reduction Action Society, which released its
18-month pilot project bid Friday.

"One way or another, there will be such a facility or facilities,"
said Ross Harvey, executive director of the B.C. Peoples with AIDS
Society and a board member.

The society, formed earlier this year, recently sent consultants to
Frankfurt, Germany, where they visited five safe injection sites set
up in 1994. The hope to have a facility open before Feb. 14.

While the city released a discussion paper earlier this week,
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen said he's not in favour of a safe
injection site, such as Geneva's infamous Needle Park, which he said
attracts 25,000 drug users from around Europe.

Such a site in Vancouver would be a magnet for drug addicts from
across the country, he said.

"This is premature and inappropriate," Owen said.

The city's drug policy discussion paper also mentioned heroin
maintenance programs that involve providing the drug to hard-core
users. The proposed sites will not provide drugs. But the paper was
only meant to encourage further public discussion.

Other area groups have opposed harm reduction measures they say
encourage drug use and draw users to Vancouver, which has the highest
concentration of drug addiction in Canada.

But Thomas Kerr, author of the proposal, said such sites decrease
overdose deaths and provide contact for rehabilitation.

"We believe that we'll be engaging the sickest and the most
marginalized drug users in our community, drug users that are not
currently in the continuum of care that is offered," Kerr said.

The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS has offered to help
evaluate the pilot project after the 18-month period.

"We understand that what we're proposing here is an initiative that
makes some people nervous," Kerr said.

But harm reduction, together with prevention, treatment and
enforcement measures, will mean safer neighbourhoods with fewer users
shooting up in the streets and less crime, he said.

The facility will be set up in Vancouver's downtown eastside, but the
Vancouver-Richmond health board has said it cannot fund safe
injection sites because drug use is still illegal.