MOST OK WITH LEGAL DRUG SITE

A majority of Canadians say it's "a good thing" heroin addicts in
Vancouver have a safe, legal place to shoot up, according to results
from a poll conducted this week for Canwest News Service and Global
National.

An Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday suggests 55 per cent of
Canadians feel the East Hastings Street centre Insite is "a good
thing" and 54 per cent thought it should remain exempt from the
country's drug laws, despite a government appeal to shut it down.

"I think this actually offers the government an opportunity to decide
whether it wants to present itself as a law-and-order government,
versus a compassionate, sensitive government," said John Wright,
Ipsos-Reid senior vice-president. "It's a tricky issue for them, it's
not an overwhelming majority [of Canadian support] and it is fraught
with contradictions."

Insite has been a sore point for politicians and health experts since
it opened in 2003, and debates have flared over whether the centre is
medically legitimate or simply a safe house for criminal behaviour.
Insite provides a supervised environment and clean needles for heroin
and other illegal drug addicts.

Participants were asked whether they thought the supervised injection
centre, which health experts argue saves lives and prevents overdoses
and the spread of disease, is a "good thing," a "bad thing," or if
they weren't sure. Forty per cent said they felt Insite was "bad."
Five per cent didn't know or refused to answer.

The poll was conducted June 3-5, one week after a B.C. Supreme Court
judge extended the site's exemption from drug laws. The poll, which
surveyed 1,000 adults by telephone, is considered accurate within 3.1
percentage points, 19 times out of 20.