HEALTH OFFICER ASKS FOR PERMANENT INSITE

A provincial steering committee that oversees the supervised
injection site in the Downtown Eastside wants Health Canada to keep
the facility open beyond September 2006.

Dr. Perry Kendall, the province's medical health officer, said the
committee sent a letter to Health Canada earlier this month
requesting Insite continue as a pilot project or simply become a
service for addicts.

"It could be either or both of them, it's up to Health Canada," said
Kendall, chair of the steering committee. "The letter points out that
you could make a case based on the evidence to date that it could be
exempted as a medical service. It also points out that we do need to
do ongoing evaluations."

Insite at 139 East Hastings opened in September 2003 as a three-year
pilot project, the only one in North America. The project is set to
finish next September.

Kendall said the letter, which he wouldn't release to the Courier,
was sent this month to give Health Canada time to decide on the
committee's request. The committee includes police, the city and
health officials.

The letter comes the same month as police announced a crackdown on
injection drug users in the Downtown Eastside. As reported in the
Courier last Wednesday, police began arresting injection drug users
Monday who were openly injecting near the site.

Insp. Bob Rolls, police commander of the Downtown Eastside, told the
Courier last week the police action was prompted by complaints from
residents and businesses about injection drug use.

The police action triggered a small protest at noon Monday in front
of Insite. About 20 members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users and the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association held placards
which read "Busting me won't make me better," "Batons are not
pillars" and "Stop the war on drug users."

Diane Tobin, president of VANDU and a longtime heroin addict, called
the police action "ridiculous." She said it will only plug up the
courts and not help addicts get treatment.

"The money that's going to be spent in the courts for this could be
used to put up another Insite," said Tobin, who uses the facility at
least three times a day.

Tobin said she doesn't like to see drug users injecting drugs in
public, but she argued public drug use could be avoided if homes were
available for addicted homeless people.

People shoot up drugs in the alleys because that's where they live,
she said as she stood outside Insite among a gauntlet of reporters
and camera people.

"They can't help that."

The city needs more injection sites, she added. But more sites are
not on the horizon, said Kendall, who pointed out the city of
Victoria wants to establish North America's next injection site.

"It's a question, I think, more of 'where' rather than 'if', and
that's a process that Victoria city council will be going through
with the Vancouver Island Health Authority," he said.

Kendall didn't see the police crackdown on public drug use as
unreasonable considering police have encouraged addicts to use Insite
since it opened.

"They have persistently been referring people to the site and I guess
they're just getting a little firmer about that."

Added Kendall: "But if it resulted in a sort of excess of people
using the site or crowds at the site or violence at the site, I would
suggest that they would be revisiting [their crackdown] with the
health region, and hopefully adjusting the policy. The last thing we
want to do is create more civic disturbance or less public safety by
trying to increase public safety."

The only evaluation of Insite released to the media was in September
2004. Conducted by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, it
revealed that while 100 addicts overdosed at the site, only one
required CPR. The report also said more than 3,000 people injected
drugs at Insite since it opened.

Attendance at Insite had been consistently high, the report said,
with visiting users making an average of nearly 600 injections per
day. A "large number" of referrals to addiction counselling and
withdrawal management services have also been made by counsellors at
Insite, the evaluation said.

The Downtown Eastside has an estimated 5,000 injection drug users,
who inject on average three times a day. Kendall believes 1,100 "core
users" frequent Insite while the others inject elsewhere.