CHAMBER OPPOSES SUPERVISED DRUG SITES

Proponents Forgetting About Crime Factor, Says Chief Executive

The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce is adamantly opposed to a
proposed supervised drug-consumption site in the city and is taking on
the mayor, police chief and health officials who support it.

Bruce Carter, chamber chief executive officer, issued a statement
yesterday saying limited health care dollars should be spent on
addiction treatment services and drug enforcement, rather than
propping up the illegal activities of users and dealers.

"The community has been crying for increased detox facilities for
years," said Carter, whose board, representing 1,500 members, has
voted against the proposed sites. "That would serve the wider good of
the community."

Greater Victoria is home to an estimated 2,000 injection-drug users --
most of whom use heroin and cocaine -- as well as hundreds of others
who ingest or smoke drugs, according to the Centre for Addictions
Research of B.C.

"It's all well and good to provide supervised injection sites for
addicts to consume drugs, but that's forgetting that for every
consumption there is a crime," Carter said.

The supervised drug-consumption sites would provide clean needles and
a supervised place to use them, but not the drugs themselves. Addicts
would still have to turn to drug dealers for their supply. Advocates
for drug consumption sites say they can help save money for the
health-care system by reducing overdoses and the spread of infectious
diseases.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe said regardless of whether the city provides
a site, hard-core addicts will continue to use and buy drugs.

"I'm not surprised the chamber has come out against supervised
injection sites -- it has always had a difficult time accepting that
we have to try new methods of reaching the most vulnerable members of
society," Lowe said.

The business leaders are going up against support from the City of
Victoria, Victoria Police Department, the Vancouver Island Health
Authority and the B.C. Health Ministry.

The federal Conservative government, which must approve the sites, is
cool to the concept.

"I think the person pushing the uphill battle, quite honestly, is the
mayor and VIHA, not the chamber," Carter said.

The City of Victoria announced June 26 that it will apply to Health
Canada by December to operate, as a three-year research project,
multiple sites where supervised addicts could shoot up -- and possibly
also smoke or ingest drugs. Victoria will ask the federal government
for an exemption from the Controlled Drug and Substances Act to
operate the sites.