VANCOUVER ADDICTS WANT SAFE PLACE TO SMOKE CRACK

VANCOUVER - Activists in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside want a "safe
inhalation room" for people who smoke crack cocaine, building on the
success of Canada's first safe injection site for those who shoot up with
other drugs.

The injection site has been open for a year, operated by the Vancouver
Coastal Health authority to serve many of the estimated 4,700 injection
drug users in the troubled neighbourhood.

However, Health Canada has never approved the drug-smoking room it
contains. That stays empty while thousands of addicts smoke crack, heroin
and crystal meth outside in dangerous, dirty alleys.

This fall, the health authority is expected to make a formal request to
Health Canada to let the smoking room open.

"I can see us making a formal request sometime soon, probably around the
one-year mark, which is next month," said spokesperson Vivian Zanocco. "It
would seem logical."

Heroin addict Dean Wilson says it's time to open the inhalation room and
provide more drug users with safe, controlled access to help if they overdose.

"I think we should give the same courtesy to people who smoke rock as we
did with the safe injection site," he said. "Get them into some kind of
continuum of health."

Crack addict Rob Morgan knows the dangers of the alleys all too well.

"It's just really high strung standing in this alley, because you're
exposed not only to the cops, but to every form of violence."

He'd like to see the safe inhalation room open.

"You're getting someone off the street, it's warm, you're out of the harsh
elements and the climate on the street, and that's one step closer to
getting off that stuff."