NO DECISION ON SITE

VICTORIA -- Health Minister Tony Clement said Friday any decision on
the future of the Vancouver drug injection site has been put off until
Dec. 31, 2007, a move that will keep the site open for another 16 months.

In a written statement, Clement said during that time additional
studies will be conducted into how supervised injection sites affect
crime, prevention and treatment.

"Do safe injection sites contribute to lowering drug use and fighting
addiction? Right now the only thing the research to date has proven
conclusively is drug addicts need more help to get off drugs," Clement
said ."Given the need for more facts, I am unable to approve the
current request to extend the Vancouver site for another 31/2 years."

Canadian police officers are urging the federal government to cut all
funding to the Vancouver site which they say is a failed experiment
that has displaced crime and has only given junkies a sense of
entitlement.

Delegates to the Canadian Police Association convention in Victoria
unanimously passed a resolution Friday urging the government to"cease
all financing of the supervised injection site program and invest in a
national drug strategy to combat drug addiction which includes
education, prevention and treatment."

"We have a significant amount of public and street disorder in the
city of Vancouver, Tom Stamatakis, CPA vice-president and president of
the Vancouver Police Union, said after the resolution passed.

"This harm-reduction focus has led to unprecedented levels of crime in
our city. Our citizens are saying that they don't feel safe. Our
citizens are saying that they're tired of the disorder in the city and
I think what we need is a national strategy to combat drug addiction
and drug-related crime issues that involves all levels of government
and involves the entire criminal justice system so we can focus really
on treatment and prevention and enforcement."

At the Vancouver site in the city's gritty Downtown Eastside, drug
users are provided clean equipment and supervised by medical personnel
as they inject cocaine or heroin in an effort to combat the spread of
HIV/AIDS and to prevent overdoses. A three-year exemption from the
federal government that allows the illegal drug use expires Sept. 12.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe, with the support of his police chief Paul
Battershill, has been lobbying for a similar site to be established in
that city.

Stamatakis advised against it.

When introduced, safe injection sites were supposed to be part of a
"four pillar" approach to dealing with drug issues that included
treatment, enforcement, education and harm reduction, he said.