FORUM STARTS DIALOGUE ON DRUG STRATEGY

Vancouver's experience with a supervised drug injection site is the focus
of a forum scheduled for Victoria City Hall tonight.

The information session is the first in a series of community consultations
over whether Victoria should establish its own facility to cope with drug
users now shooting up on downtown streets.

"I think there's a lot of support out there but there has to be a
dialogue," Mayor Alan Lowe said Tuesday.

Vancouver became the first community in North America to establish a safe
injection site last September, when it received approval from Health Canada
to launch a three-year trial program. The site is used by about 600 illegal
drug users daily who previously injected drugs in the public areas of
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Chris Buchner, manager of the site, is the keynote speaker for tonight's
forum. Additional presentations will be made by officials from the
Vancouver Police Department, the city of Vancouver, the B.C. Centre for
Disease Control and Vancouver's Chinatown Revitalization Committee.

Dr. Richard Stanwick, chief medical health officer for the Vancouver Island
Health Authority, will moderate a question and answer session after the
presentations.

Last week Victoria council officially adopted a "harm reduction" approach
to deal with the growing number of illegal drug users downtown.

This is part of a four pillars strategy, used in Vancouver, that aims to
reduce the harm done to people using illegal drugs, while also promoting
drug abuse prevention, treatment and enforcement.

An estimated 500 to 1,000 such users are injecting drugs openly in downtown
Victoria, though only a relative handful -- Lowe said the number could be
as few as a dozen -- are responsible for leaving needles scattered around
streets and alleys. The city's needle exchange, pioneered in 1993 as the
first of its kind in the country, ensures most users do not discard needles.

The early indications from Vancouver's experience appear to be positive,
although a formal report on the safe injection site's first six months is
not expected for several weeks.

However, the site only caters to an estimated fifth of the city's drug
users, while initial indications suggest a similar facility could handle
all of Victoria's drug users, Stanwick said during a meeting with the Times
Colonist editorial board.

City Police Chief Paul Battershill said he is "cautiously supportive" of an
injection site. But he said this would not stop enforcement of drug dealing
by police.

Last year police began stepping up presence downtown by putting the
plain-clothes drug squad in uniform, resulting in an increase in
prosecutions against street dealers.