CANADIANS WAFFLE ON SAFE INJECTION SITE: POLL

Vancouver's safe-injection site, under attack by the federal health
minister, has the support of 38 per cent of Canadians, a new poll suggests.

The Angus Reid survey also found that 23 per cent of surveyed
Canadians oppose Insite, which provides clean needles and a 12-seat
room where people can inject heroin, cocaine and morphine under
clinical supervision.

Thirty-nine per cent of surveyed Canadians were undecided about Insite.

Support for Insite was strongest among British Columbians and Albertans.

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement recently trashed Insite in front
of the Canadian Medical Association in Montreal and at the
International AIDS Conference in Mexico City.

Clement said the facility saves just one life a year.

"There are still 50 overdose deaths every year in the Downtown
Eastside and Insite has had no impact on this rate of death," Clement said.

But Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which documented 222 drug
overdoses at Insite last year, said half of them involved full
respiratory arrest and the victims were saved by facility staff.

"If there wasn't an intervention in them, the person would die," said
Anna Marie D'Angelo, spokeswoman for Vancouver Coastal.

Insite costs $2.5 million a year to operate.

Calling the facility "a surrender to a culture of disease and death,"
Clement said the money would be better spent on treating addiction.

Vancouver Coastal contends that Insite refers hundreds of drug users
every year to addiction counselling. Addicts who use the facility are
more likely to enter detox programs, with one in five regular Insite
visitors entering detox, according to the health authority.

Twenty per cent of polled Canadians mistakenly believed the facility
also hands out heroin, cocaine and morphine.

In B.C., 53 per cent of respondents said they supported Insite
strongly or moderately. Fifty-six per cent of Albertans took that view.

Angus Reid, in questioning 1,005 Canadians from Aug. 15 to Aug. 18,
broke the results down by education and income, and found that the
strongest support for Insite came from people with household incomes
of $100,000 or more, and from university graduates.