WHEN REDUCING HARM CAUSES HARM

As the Citizen reported yesterday, University of Ottawa professor Lynne
Leonard has received $135,000 in research funds to study the viability of
establishing a safe-injection site for drug users in Ottawa, which would
augment the city's existing needle-exchange program.

Like the recent debate over whether public-health officials should
distribute clean crack-pipe paraphernalia in Ottawa, the debate about a
safe-injection site will be intense.

Meanwhile, other Canadian communities are struggling with their own drug
problems, as Vancouver Province columnist Joey Thompson found recently when
she examined the effect of a needle-exchange program in Chilliwack, B.C.

These down-home pensioners, disabled citizens and small shopkeepers picked
the Chilliwack farming community for its safe, reliable, uncomplicated pace.

But their reverie was shattered when addicts and prostitutes cropped up on
their street in mid-May to obtain condoms, bleach kits and needles from a
newly opened IV-drug users' clinic.

Lorraine Palmer and the 29 seniors in Arbour House, one of at least five
residential complexes on Spadina, loved strolling the tree-lined avenue,
savouring fresh-roasted coffee and daily baked biscuits at John Speagle and
Freeman Dryden's cafe, photocopying at Ron Niessen's Sure Copy Printing and
nursing their aching feet at Wendy Duquette's Elegant Nailz.

Not anymore.

Business for the group of shop owners near the Fraser Health Authority's
foray into so-called harm reduction and prevention has sunk to where
Niessen says bankruptcy is his future.

Citizens Coalition members such as Palmer and Joyce Adanac cite incidents
of unruly panhandling, assaults and a boost in property theft since the
clinic opened Friday, May 13. They say drug deals are going down around
them and store washrooms have been commandeered as flop-houses and shooting
galleries.

Harm reduction for users and abusers, maybe, but harm introduction for
folks like a visually impaired young woman who asked that I not name her
for fear the junkies will track her down. Her seeing-eye dog isn't trained
to skirt discarded condoms or dirty needles, she says, nor is the Labrador
aware of how aggressive some users can become when a passerby stumbles
accidentally into their space.

But not everyone is on the same page. Supporters of the program say no
problem existed until the coalition folks created one. Indeed, the nearby
United Church has urged its congregation to support the harm-reduction project.

Landlord Craig Campbell, who runs Clearview Optical on the same block, says
he has a three-year-lease with FHA and Fraser Valley Connection Services,
the private provider awarded the government contract to run the facility.

While sympathetic to the residents' concerns, and prepared to look into the
legalities of breaking the contract, he's seen nothing to cause them angst,
he said, other than their own fears that say they're at risk.

But the issue is not whether residents and shop owners -- who collectively
pay out millions in property and business taxes -- are at risk. What
matters is they think they're at risk. And the gnawing fear that danger
lurks around the corner can ruin anyone's peace of mind.

Why can't law-abiding folks assume they will spend their later years in a
safe neighbourhood? What was the health authority thinking when it
unceremoniously dumped a needle exchange, condom and bleach kit handout
shop in the heart of a seniors' living zone?

Why can't the health authorities install these clinics near medical sites
or in hospital annexes already stocked with the necessary resources and
emergency staff?

I intended to put these questions to Sherry Mumford, director of the Fraser
Health Authority's addictions programs, but she didn't return my call.