EXCHANGE ELUDES QUICK FIX

There are no easy answers to finding a home for the city's needle
exchange. These are the options:

1. Fixed needle exchange at new site on Pandora Avenue:

Pros: The St. John Ambulance building on Pandora Avenue is only about
two blocks from
the current Cormorant Street needle exchange, meaning drug addicts
are already in the
area. The St. John building is, however, considerably larger and
beside the new Our
Place, which offers transitional housing, social services and
amenities like washrooms
for people living on the street.

The building will house about 50 health-care and social-service
providers including Assertive Community Treatment outreach teams,
doctors, nurses, addiction counsellors and social workers. Police
would also have a presence inside and outside the building to maintain
public order. More flexible hours of operation, and the possible use
of a courtyard, mean drug users won't congregate all at once outside
the building.

Cons: The new building is close to the Victoria Conservatory of Music
and St. Andrew's
Elementary School, and parents are worried about safety. Parents
worry about kids
finding syringes, seeing drugs being used or interacting with addicts who act
unpredictably and inappropriately.

Neither the City of Victoria nor the police have a formal plan of how
police will patrol the area, keep order and ensure the area won't
become like Cormorant Street. Also, VIHA and the city didn't first
consult the school and others in the neighbourhood before planning the
move, which may be a difficult slight to overcome.

2. A mobile needle exchange only:

Pros: This can be an effective way to blanket the city and access
people on the street
who won't seek out the fixed location. And since the service moves
around, large groups
of users likely won't congregate at the the same place and the same time.

Cons: Users might reuse dirty needles because they can't find or keep
track of where the
mobile unit is -- which defeats the purpose of the service, and could
increase the rate
of HIV and hepatitis C infections. Drug users could disperse throughout various
communities and lose contact with health professionals, who can often
test and treat
them and keep an eye out for overdoses.

3. Another fixed location:

Pros: VIHA is looking for other possible locations but has not
formally identified any
as yet. It was previously looking in the Rock Bay area. This time,
VIHA and the city
could do widespread consultation before planning a move, in order to
get off to a better
start with neighbours.

Cons: If the location is too remote or doesn't offer integrated
services, there will be
no ability for health and social-service providers to help users.
Moreover, it's
unlikely VIHA will find a neighbourhood that won't oppose the service
moving there.

4. A dedicated safe-injection site:

Pros: Together with a needle exchange, a supervised injection site
gives drug users a
place to inject drugs with a nurse present, thereby taking open drug
use off the
streets. B.C.'s health minister, the provincial health officer, the
city and other
health officials support a study that suggests Victoria set up three
small sites,
possibly including a mobile unit.

Multiple sites would cost an estimated $1.2 million annually and could
save up to $2.8 million in health-care costs, according to VIHA.

Cons: Vancouver's supervised injection site, Insite, is overcrowded
and has seen addicts
overwhelm the surrounding area. As well, the site must be approved by
Health Canada and
requires an exemption from Canada's federal drug laws, and the
federal government is not
expected to grant approval.

VIHA's board also wants more clinical research before approving the
idea. -- Cindy E. Harnett, Times Colonist