CITY RIVALS SPLIT ON ANSWER FOR ADDICTS

Mayoral Hopefuls Support Injection Sites But Differ On How To Fulfil Goal

Both of Victoria's highest-profile mayoral rivals support a supervised
injection site for the city, but differ on how it can be achieved -- and
how quickly.

"We have to get people to understand that a safe injection site is part of
a harm-reduction strategy," said Mayor Alan Lowe, referring to treatment,
prevention, enforcement and housing options.

"It is part of it, but not the whole thing."

Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, and former mayor Philip Owen, said Victoria
needs a political champion to keep pushing the issue until it becomes a
reality like it did for Vancouver in 2003.

"I think in the past year and a half I have been trying to champion this by
getting the dialogue going and getting the information sessions going,"
said Lowe.

Owen lost his political party's support and mayor's job by championing a
Vancouver site in 2002.

Lowe said he would also be willing to sacrifice his job for a supervised
injection site if he had to, "because I think it's the right thing to do."

However, mayoral candidate Ben Isitt, a socialist who surprised many in
2002 when he got almost 30 per cent of the votes cast for mayor, said Lowe
is moving too slow.

"Alan Lowe is attempting to have one foot in each camp," he said.

"On one hand he went on a public fact-finding mission in Europe that I
support. ... but that fact-finding mission will not have been an effective
use of taxpayer dollars if there isn't a follow-through in terms of filing
a permit and building a safe-injection site."

If elected, Isitt said, he would ask council to immediately apply for a
Health Canada exemption to the Controlled Substances Act -- a crucial step
that, if approved, would allow users to inject illegal drugs at a future
consumption site.

"Drug addiction is too serious an issue to delay any longer," said Isitt.

Lowe countered the criticism: "I want to move forward faster, but I think
that if I go too fast, and if the majority of the public do not support
this, all the work we have done in the last three years would actually lose
momentum."

"There is a time where you have to just go out there and say this is the
right thing for the community and just do it. And I think that time will
come probably sometime in the new year, where we will have the support of
Vancouver Island Health Authority as well as support from the federal
government."

Both Lowe and Isitt said finding a location could be the biggest challenge.
Lowe said he wants to consult and collect more data on where a site would
be best-suited.

Isitt said a downtown location would make the most sense.

Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh has said he is willing to expand
safe-injection sites to other cities. But he added that the public, local
police, city council, province and health authority would have to agree to
any site proposal.