TEAMS HELP INCAPACITATED ADDICTS SHOOT UP

It's Another Step To Fight Against HIV

"Injecting-support" teams working the alleys of Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside have helped incapacitated or physically unable addicts to
shoot drugs for the past eight weeks.

Formed by the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, the teams of two
patrol the alleys with clean needles.

If addicts can't shoot up themselves, volunteers can to do it for
them, says co-ordinator Ron Morgan.

The goal, says Morgan, is twofold -- to reduce health problems
associated with shooting up in unsanitary and uncontrolled conditions,
and to convince Ottawa to change the rules at the city's
safe-injection site.

"We are not helping steer them to a dealer. We are not helping them
purchase drugs. It's not our effort to get them hooked," he says.

Nurses at Insite, the safe-injection site on East Hastings, are not
allowed to help clients shoot up. By law, administering a shot of
drugs is technically trafficking. The Health Canada exemption at
Insite is for possession only.

The unfortunate result, says the manager of the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority's HIV/AIDS and harm reduction program, is that some
addicts are turned away.

"It's a bit of a blind spot in terms of our strategies," says Chris
Buchner.

While conceding that helping addicts to inject may seem like a strange
way of going about achieving harm reduction, Buchner says he supports
the peer-to-peer educational approach the group is taking.

Morgan says team members have health-authority courses and are all
experienced current, or former, intravenous drug users.

The teams make a point of asking if people they find in the alleys
already injected from their stash that day. If not, the teams ensure
the addict shoots a small amount of the drug first to confirm that
it's safe.

The teams also pass on a key sentence of advice to addicts: "Taste it,
test it, shoot with a friend."

A B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS study has shown users
incapable of injecting the drugs themselves are twice as likely to to
become infected by HIV as those who can shoot up by themselves.

The teams are not provincially or federally funded.

Police are taking a cautious line as they watch the VANDU project
unfold.

"The police are concerned and will be assessing this," said Const.
Howard Chow. It will be left to individual officers' discretion
whether they arrest team members assisting addicts.