SAFE INJECTION SITES WILL DRAW KEY USERS: STUDY

Vancouver drug addicts who inject in public, have recently overdosed, who
are sex-trade workers or who inject heroin frequently are among those most
likely to use a supervised injection facility, according to a new study
published today in a prominent AIDS journal.

And that's a good sign, according to local researchers, because it means
that if a site opens locally -- as Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell has said
he hopes will happen by March 1 --those most likely to use it will be the
people for whom it is primarily intended.

"This study will hopefully help policymakers with their decisions," said
one of the lead researchers, Evan Woods of the Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS at St. Paul's, whose paper appears in the Journal of Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

Woods also observed that several recent criticisms made of
supervised-injection sites -- that cocaine users won't go to them or that
they will act as "magnets" for users in other regions -- are disproven by
this and other studies.

"People say cocaine injectors won't go, but we found a willingness to go,"
said Woods, who said those surveyed included people who inject heroin,
cocaine, and "speedballs" -- a mix of heroin and cocaine.

The study notes that U.S. drug czar John Walters, in a recent speech to the
Vancouver Board of Trade, repeated a second criticism that is often heard,
that addicts will come from other cities if an injection site is opened in
Vancouver.

"However, this claim is not substantiated by the scientific literature,
given that previous studies have shown that intravenous drug users are
generally unwilling to travel even short distances to use SIF and other
medical services," the study says. "Although this concern should be subject
to evaluation, the present study also does not support this claim, given
that only 5.9 per cent of non-Downtown Eastside residents reported coming
to this neighbourhood to obtain services."

The study, conducted by several researchers at the Centre for Excellence,
found 37 per cent of 587 addicts surveyed by the researchers were
interested in using a supervised injection site. The addicts questioned are
part of a long-term study of drug users in Vancouver called Vancouver
Injection Drug User Study, a sample group that has provided local
researchers with a significant amount of information about drug-user
behaviour. Since the study began in 1996, 190 of the participants have
died, 41 of HIV/AIDS and 51 of drug overdoses -- two drug-use effects that
international health researchers say are reduced when safe-injection sites
are put in place. That's representative of the larger picture in Vancouver,
which has one of the highest HIV-infection rates in the world and where
drug overdoses have been a leading cause of death for the past 10 years.

The paper found that, besides interesting people who frequently use heroin
or have had an overdose experience in the past six months, the idea of
supervised-injection sites also appealed strongly to people who inject in
public places.

"The use of public spaces for drug use is responsible for public, nuisance,
unsafe disposal of syringes, and has been cited among the greatest concerns
of residents and businesspersons in neighbourhoods where public drug use is
common," the study notes.

If the people using in public are willing to go to supervised sites,
Vancouver may experience the same reaction that other communities in Europe
and Australia have had to sites: "In settings where SIFs have been
implemented, community residents report preferring the presence of SIFs to
the public drug scenes that preceded them," the study says.

Of the 587 people still using drugs out of the original group, 215 said
they would go to a supervised-injection site, 288 said they wouldn't, and
84 said they weren't sure.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is currently working on a proposal
to submit to Health Canada to open the country's first authorized
supervised-injection site, with the support of Vancouver council, whose
recent election was spurred in part by its support for opening
supervised-injection sites.

Campbell has said he hopes one site will be one open in the Downtown
Eastside by March 1. Health Canada has promised to review proposals within
60 days of getting them. It is still unclear who will pay for the operation
of the sites.