CANADA PLANS 'INJECTION SITE' FOR DRUG USERS IN VANCOUVER

Canada's health ministry yesterday approved North America's first sanctioned
"safe injection site" for illegal drug users, a controversial project in
Vancouver that the Bush administration has called "state-sponsored ...
suicide."

The facility, to be located in the heart of the B.C. port city's drug- and
crime-ridden Downtown Eastside neighborhood, will provide a cliniclike
setting where drug addicts can shoot up under the supervision of a
registered nurse in a facility that offers a legal safe zone for drug users.

The aim of the program, which has been endorsed by Vancouver's police, is to
offer "injection supervision" to prevent overdoses, as well as provide clean
needles to reduce the spread of AIDS, hepatitis and other blood-borne
diseases epidemic among intravenous drug users.

Health Canada, the national health ministry, granted the program a federal
criminal exemption that makes it off-limits for police. Addicts cannot be
arrested for possession of illegal narcotics while using the facility.

"Users can bring their own drugs, heroin or cocaine, onto the site and
inject them," said Viviana Zanocco, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority. "People on the premises will be safe from arrest for
possession of an illegal substance."

Similar safe-injection programs have been introduced in Switzerland, the
Netherlands and Australia with mixed results: The spread of diseases and
deaths by overdose among addicts have declined somewhat, but addiction rates
have not fallen, according to some drug-use specialists.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, has voiced strong objections to the proposed Canadian project, which
could be in operation by September with the help of a $1.1 million grant
from the Canadian government. Earlier this year, he described it as
"state-sponsored personal suicide," arguing that instead of treating the
illness of drug addiction, the injection site will enable addicts to
continue poisoning themselves in a clinical setting near the U.S. border.

David Murray, policy analyst with the White House drug control office, said
that the United States does not challenge Canada's "sovereign right" to
underwrite the injection site, but that it is alarmed "from the point of
view of a neighbor and from a public health perspective" at a program that
puts narcotics users and, potentially, dealers beyond reach of the law.

"Canada may be abetting the public health crisis more than treating it," he
said.

Canada and the United States have been at odds on an array of issues since
President Bush was sworn into office. Prime Minister Jean Chretien has
infuriated the White House with his refusal to support the Iraq war, his
undiplomatic critiques of American economic policy, his plan to
"decriminalize" marijuana, and his pledge last week to legalize homosexual
marriages.

Annoyed by anti-American jibes from members of Chretien's Liberal Party, the
White House in April scrapped Bush's first state visit to Canada, planned
for May 5.

Vancouver suffers from some of the highest drug-addiction rates in North
America. In Downtown Eastside, addicts shoot up openly. Crime is rampant and
the streets are littered with needles.

The facility will be located a half-block from the intersection of Main and
Hastings streets -- a section known as "pain and wasting" among
Vancouverites. The clinic will consist of 12 seats where addicts shoot up
under supervision, an emergency room for treating overdoses, as well as a
first aid station for addicts who arrive with wounds or infected sores.

Sterile needles will be provided, but what sets the project apart is the
federal exemption from any enforcement of drug laws.

"If we can just slow the spread of the disease among addicts, we'll be
saving taxpayers millions and millions of dollars in health costs," said
Zanocco, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority spokeswoman. "The U.S. and
Canada seem to have different views on drug addiction. We see it as a health
issue, not a criminal problem."