VICTORIA POLICE BACK 'PROPER' INJECTION SITES

VICTORIA -- Victoria's police chief says he supports safe-injection sites
for heroin addicts -- provided they're done properly.

"Properly is not a dirty room to fix in," Chief Paul Battershill said
yesterday.

Rather, "properly" should include medical supervision, a parallel
prevention program and a strong component to move addicts into other treatment.

"It needs to be part of a continuum of care," he stressed.

But in such circumstances, he believes a site might "be something that
could be used to help people" who badly need it.

He'll be meeting next month with health officials and social planners from
the City of Victoria to see what the next steps might be in setting up the
project.

But he doubts that a program could be in place as soon as the one hoped for
in Vancouver, which could get under way as early as January.

In fact, he said, that may be OK because Victoria can have the benefit of
lessons learned from Vancouver's experiment.