DRUG GROUP ADVOCATING NEW SITE

The need for a safe drug consumption site for inhaled drugs has
never been stronger, according to a drug user advocacy group.

Ann Livingston, of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU),
says as conditions in the Downtown Eastside deteriorate, drug
smokers are left exposed to sickness, disease and abuse.

"In the DTES, it's pretty obvious there is a lot of public drug use
going on and a need for a consumption room," said Livingston.

"We have the safe-injection site that's giving people a safe place
to go, but a majority of drug users inhale their drugs."

VANDU is willing to open renegade inhalation rooms so people have a
supervised area to take their drugs, but despite a lot of support,
no funding has come their way.

It wouldn't be the first time the group took harm-reduction into its
own hands.

In the 1990s, VANDU opened up a number of safe-injection sites and
the moved sparked a chain of events that led to the opening of the
government-funded Insite.

Livingston believes that doing the same with inhaled drugs could
have the same result.