POINTING IN A NEW DIRECTION

Drug Treatment: Injection Site Workers Motivated by Loss of Friends, Relatives

They've lost friends and family members to drug addiction. One of
them almost died last year herself before she got into a treatment
program that worked.

Now, they feel, they're going to get a chance to help those struggling
with drug addiction in a new and humane way.

This is the unusual team of nurses, counsellors, and program workers
that has been assembled to staff North America's first experiment with
an injection site for drug users.

On Monday the site will open to an international barrage of media
attention and intense public scrutiny. This week, the 24-member team
finished off the last of its three weeks of intensive training prior
to the opening, learning about everything from cardiopulmonary
resuscitation to conflict resolution and how the site will coordinate
with police.

"I've been working with these people for a number of years," says
30-year-old Sargent Hayden, a nurse who will be working for the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

"I couldn't count the number of times I saw people in very scary
environments trying to inject, taking water from puddles. It's not a
fable. I'm very excited now to be part of this."

So is Randy Janzen, also a nurse, and Adella Zeller, who has seen the
difficulties substance abuse brings to her extended family, who are Sto:lo
from Seabird Island.

For Tanya Jordan-Knox, being able to work at the injection site will
give her a chance to do for others what she wished someone had done
for her earlier in her life.

The 26-year-old from Surrey struggled with cocaine and heroin
addiction for six years, being told she couldn't get into a recovery
house unless she could stay clean for 30 days first, and having her
health problems dismissed because she was an addict.

A life-threatening internal infection that put her in hospital for a
month, along with the Nechako Women's, Infants and Childrens'
treatment program in Prince George, ultimately helped her turn herself
around.

But she's hoping the site will provide an easier route for drug users
than the one she went.

"When I was using, I know the happiest times were when somebody just
treated me as a human being. We want to get the word out that we're
there unconditionally."

Nathan Dillon knows that people are waiting to use the site -- and
even police are onside. The sometime musician has been working in the
past several months with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users,
helping distribute needles in alleys between midnight and 8 a.m.

"We really meet people where they are."

He frequently sees people from the music and arts crowd he became part
of when he moved here in the early '90s.

"Heroin use was rampant in that community. We lost a lot of talented
and amazing people," says the 28-year-old. He is hoping the injection
site will create a profound shift in the community in treating the
epidemic of addiction. Like all of them, he is hoping the site will
bring in people who don't go to other kinds of health services, that
it will help them prevent the kinds of health problems users develop,
and that, if and when they're ready, staff will be able to help them
get on the road to less drug-afflicted lives.

While the staff might strike some as unconventional, they were chosen
precisely because they have a particular combination of skills and
respect.

"Whenever we look for staff, but particularly for this site, it's
incredibly important that we pick people who are sensitive to the
needs of people with addictions," says Liz Evans of the Portland Hotel
Society.

The society, which will co-manage the site with the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority, also runs housing and lifeskills centres for
Downtown Eastside drug users.

Evans, like everyone involved with the site, has high hopes for what
it will do.

"The most obvious impact it will have is provide the lowest-threshold
entry point into the system for people, where all you have to do is
come in the door. I think the impact will be huge in preventing the
spread of disease and saving lives."

The site will cost $2 million a year to run, in part because Health
Canada has required fairly stringent staffing and monitoring
requirements. Health Canada staff signed the final exemption form
Friday, removing the last technical barrier to the site's opening.

Vancouver Police spokeswoman Constable Sarah Bloor said police have
assigned a special team of eight officers to the site to act as
liaison and develop a working relationship with staff.

Bloor said there won't be a "bubble zone" outside the site, where
people can be guaranteed they won't be charged with possession, but
she said police have no intention of trying to discourage people from
going in.

If they stop someone with drugs within a four-block radius of the
site, they'll simply be directed to go to the site, she said, unless
police have some other reason to arrest them.

The site's first year of operating money was confirmed last week,
after Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell spent a couple of intense weeks
to secure it, getting a personal commitment from Premier Gordon
Campbell and working closely with Health Minister Colin Hansen.