SUPPORT WHEN USERS NEED IT MOST

'They Have A Place That's Welcoming'

When June walked into the Cactus needle exchange centre recently, she was
short $10 to buy a 10th of a gram of heroin, her usual evening dose.

She walked out carrying five syringes, a few aluminum cups the size of soft
drink bottle caps, a handful of alcohol pads and five water flasks.

When she finds the money to buy her fix, she will dissolve the heroin in
the sterilized water and heat it in the aluminum cup to kill bacteria. Then
she will draw the mix in the syringe, rub her arm with the alcohol pad,
find a vein and slowly inject herself.

"Heroin is a love story for me," said the 26-year-old tall and slender
woman with watery eyes and two little pits in her cheeks as she smiled.

"I used to always think about suicide when I was younger, but heroine just
makes these thoughts go away."

Like most drug users interviewed at Cactus that night, June said she rarely
goes to hospitals, CLSCs or pharmacies to stock up on clean needles because
she feels judged by the personnel. Cactus is the only place where she feels
at ease, she said.

"We don't try to persuade people to stop using drugs here," said Martin
Lebel, 25, an outreach worker with Cactus for three years.

"They're going to shoot up anyway, so at least we're trying to convince
them to do this in a safe manner."

Along with the needles and condoms he doles out to drug users and
prostitutes, Lebel also slips in a few words of advice and provides them
with referrals to other support groups. But above all, he listens.

"Most of the time, these people are stranded; they feel bad and nobody
wants to listen to them," he said.

"At least when they come here, they have a place that's welcoming."

As many as 30,000 people pour in through the doors of Cactus each year, of
varied ages and from different backgrounds.

At 9 p.m., a homeless man wearing a woolen hat over a baseball cap drops
five syringes in a sealed container and leaves with five clean ones.

"Not all people who come here are homeless," said Veronique Houle, 26, who
works at Cactus.

"Some of them have jobs, and they like the anonymity of the place."

June is one of those. Although she has been shooting up for 10 years, she
has managed to keep a steady job in the theatre industry to support her
$60-a-day heroin habit.

"I tried to quit," she said.

"I went on a methadone program at the St. Luc Hospital."

But the nurses and doctors there made her feel so bad about her addiction
that she quickly gave up.

"I walked out of there crying," she said. "When I first walked in at

Cactus, that's when I realized that I wasn't alone anymore."