SAFE SITE'S BENEFITS TOUTED AT DRUG FORUM

Vancouver's supervised injection site for drug addicts hasn't seen a
"honeypot effect" and there's been no big increase in criminal
activity, a police spokesman told a Victoria forum Wednesday night.

Sgt. Scott Simpson, one of the key Vancouver police officials on the
project, said the injection site hasn't lured addicts from across the
region.

And in 71/2 months of operation, there have been 89 incidents when
police were called to the site to assist -- an average of only once
every two or three days. There's been no increase in disturbances, he
said.

"It's been an interesting journey for us," said Simpson, a former
Mountie and a 17-year veteran of the Vancouver force.

"We weren't going to get in their way, at the same time doing what we
had to do in the street," Simpson said of the police attitude to the
injection site.

Police support the site's public-health objectives and are encouraging
users in the city's tough Downtown Eastside to use the safe injection
facility.

At the same time, they haven't used the European policing model, where
heavy enforcement in the vicinity of a centre drives addicts in the
door.

Police on duty in the area "have a broad range of discretion" about
enforcing unlawful activity, and are encouraging people in a
four-block radius to use the centre, he said.

Keynote speaker Chris Buchner, who manages Vancouver's drug injection
centre, said an interim report on the site's first months is still
being drafted, but added that there has been a dramatic reduction in
public drug injection and in drug-injection paraphernalia scattered on
streets.

There's been no change in trafficking activity or loitering around the
site, he said.

Buchner said the site was about "health and dignity" for injection
drug users and quickly sketched its operations. The place is an access
point for addiction counselling, health services and referrals to
detox and doctors.

The site gets about 500 visits a day -- some addicts come more than
once a day -- and the record usage was 666 visits on a single day. The
place had undoubtedly saved lives, he said. On the worst day, five
overdose victims were revived, but usually two or three days go by
without an overdose.

Age limit for admittance to the site is 16; about 40 per cent of users
are on heroin, another 40 per cent are on cocaine, 10 per cent use
multiple substances and 10 per cent inject pain medications like
morphine or Dilaudid.

It has a dozen plain booths without doors where users sit at a
stainless steel counter with injection items. Nurses are always on
staff to watch for overdoses and there's a "chillout room" where staff
ask addicts to stay for 10 minutes after injecting to check for reactions.

The forum drew about 200 Victorians, from senior police to the entire
city council, public health officials, downtown business people, a
large turnout from AIDS Vancouver Island and local residents.

Pulled together by Mayor Alan Lowe's office, the forum at City Hall
was the beginning of community consultation on whether Victoria should
copy Vancouver and set up a safe place to inject or hundreds of local
addicts.

Lowe has said his reading of the issue is that there's widespread
support for such a centre, but first "there has to be a dialogue."

Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill has also expressed cautious
support for a centre but said it won't replace law enforcement
activity against drug dealers.