SAFE-INJECTION SITE GETS SUPPORT IN E-TOWN

Despite federal government opposition, Edmonton should consider a
safe-injection site for drug users, the head of a downtown
needle-exchange program says.

"We absolutely support Insite and think that type of safe-injection
site should be available across the country, including Edmonton,"
said Street Works program manager Marliss Taylor.

The comments come after the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in support of
Insite, a Vancouver program that allows users to bring in their own
drugs to inject under the watch of medical staff. In his decision,
Justice Ian Pitfield ruled it would violate users' constitutional
rights to deny them services to treat their addictions. As a result,
he struck down laws against drug use at supervised-injection sites.

This week, Health Minister Tony Clement said he'll ask Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson to appeal the B.C. ruling. Among his concerns
with Insite, he cited data that suggests the program saves just one
life a year from overdose.

"A better thing to do is to treat people, to prevent people from
going on the drugs in first place," he said.

For Taylor, the federal move wasn't unexpected.

"There's a strong ideological drive, so I'm not surprised that they
appealed," she said.

In Edmonton, officials, including Mayor Stephen Mandel, have
occasionally raised the possibility of a supervised-injection site
here, particularly in light of evidence that such programs help
prevent overdoses, steer addicts into treatment and cut down on
disease transmission.

A recent poll conducted for the Canada West Foundation indicated the
idea of a safe-injection site has significant public support.
According to the survey, 47% of Edmontonians think having a program
here is a good idea.

At Capital Health, associate medical officer of health Dr. James
Talbot says officials are watching developments in Vancouver
carefully but notes that having a program in Edmonton hasn't been an
option since a federal exemption from drug laws applied only to
Insite. Still, he said research so far has been "fairly convincing
that the safe-injection site does have benefits for the community it
serves."

Taylor, however, said that while she believes Edmonton should have a
program, the city needs to meet more basic needs first. The Street
Works needle-exchange program, for example, runs its van only five
evenings a week within the downtown core. With a growing homeless
population leading to more public drug use, expanding the service
should be a priority, she argued.

"As homelessness becomes a bigger and bigger issue, the result is
that we have a lot more people injecting in public because they don't
have a place to go," said Taylor.