ILLEGAL DRUG USE FUELS SOBER DEBATE

Addicts Among Crowd Of About 100 Who Mull Over Harm-Reduction
Programs, Other Proposed Remedies

Supervised drug consumption sites are a bandage on the gaping wound
of addiction in Victoria that will not clear addicts from the street,
prevent crime, stop drug-related deaths or end abuse. But they can
slow the bleeding, illicit drug researcher Benedikt Fischer said last
night at Central Baptist Church.

Fischer was the keynote speaker for the Voices of Substance conference.

About 100 supporters, detractors and users of harm-reduction programs
- -- which allow addicts to use drugs while reducing risks to
themselves and others -- were united in their sense of urgency that
something be done to help the more than 2,000 injection drug addicts here.

Brad Nelson, 44, a cancer researcher, was there because he lives near
emergency shelter Streetlink and sees drug addiction everyday.
Walking by isn't the answer, compassion alone doesn't help, and
political talk hasn't impressed him yet, he said.

"I'm a scientist, so I'm into finding solutions to problems. And I
think this problem has really grown out of control in the last few
years in Victoria," Nelson said. "It's just unbelievable to me that
we can't do better as a community in helping these people."

Camosun College student Mike Goodliffe, 37, is against all
harm-reduction strategies. A former addict who went to jail for a
violent assault before he straightened out, Goodliffe believes
addicts should be separated from the community, not neatly
incorporated and encouraged to continue their habit.

"People quit all the time when they go to jail," Goodliffe said.
"I've seen hard-core heroin addicts quit after two days and be perfectly fine."

He brought European studies with him to challenge those referred to
by Fischer, who is from the Centre for Addictions Research B.C.
Fischer produced a feasibility study for the city and Vancouver
Island Health Authority in support of a proposal to have three small
safe-injection sites operate in Victoria as a three-year research
project for about $1.2 million annually.

"I want people to be very, very realistic what these things can and
cannot do," Fischer told the audience. "But we can make some small
steps of progress in public health and community safety." As well,
support for these sites turns drug addiction into a health rather
than a criminal issue, which is essential, he added.

The needle exchange on Cormorant Street has been criticized because
addicts loiter outside, shoot up and leave a trail of used needles
and human waste.

But Fischer explained a needle exchange is a place to exchange
hardware, dirty needles for clean ones. It cannot be blamed for
homeless addicts having nowhere to go, nowhere to use their drugs and
for the lack of health and social services in the city, he said.

Dennis Gudmundson, 51, head of the Society of Living Intravenous
Drugusers, lost his wife and almost his own life to drugs. He still
does cocaine for "maintenance and recreation."

Supervised injection sites would give addicts a safe place to shoot
up with medical staff on hand to prevent overdoses or refer them to
treatment, he said. After visiting the needle exchange, addicts are
sent to filthy alleyways exposed to disease, he said.

There are between 15 and 30 overdose deaths a year in Victoria, and
about 50 per cent of new HIV and 70 per cent of new Hepatitis C cases
are injection-drug related. In a lifetime, one person with HIV costs
the health-care system about $250,000, according to VIHA.