ROCK READY TO SUPPORT SAFE-INJECTION SITES

Canada's health minister is prepared to support safe-injection sites
for hard-drug users if local community representatives stand behind
them, says an official from Health Minister Allan Rock's office.

That would mean getting written approval from four local bodies --
city council, the provincial government, the local health board, and
the police, the official said.

Health Canada would need express approval because the federal
government will not impose supervised injection sites without the
approval of local residents, the official said Friday in explaining
and amplifying a seven-page letter that Rock recently sent to
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen outlining his support for the city's
comprehensive drug strategy.

In the letter, Rock writes that he guarantees the federal government
will come up with one-third of the $2 million needed to run a special
secretariat in Vancouver that will largely deal with drug issues.

He also writes that he expects to come up with money for the city's
proposed strategies to reduce drug use.

On the subject of safe-injection sites, the letter says only that a
federal/provincial/territorial task force is currently studying the
issue.

But the official in Rock's office went further by providing the
details of Rock's stand on support and conditions for the sites.
However, he specified that Health Canada would not take the initiative
to encourage cities to develop community support for safe-injection
sites. They would be viewed as an alternative model of health-care
delivery, not a clinical trial run by the federal government in cities
across the country.

It's expected that Rock, who will be in Vancouver next week on other
issues, will announce those recently developed standards soon. Until
now, Health Canada has taken the non-committal position that
safe-injection sites are illegal.

If the federal government supported a safe-injection site, it's
assumed the health minister would issue an exemption from current drug
laws that would allow people to be in possession of illegal drugs
inside the facility, an option that legal experts have said is the
best route for a site. It's not clear what kind of financial support
the ministry would provide.

Rock's support and conditions will have a major impact in Vancouver,
which is the only city in Canada that has publicly raised the idea of
having safe-injection sites for drug users as a way of reducing
overdose deaths, treating disease, and providing a first point of
health contact for those wanting to stop using drugs.

The city announced a comprehensive drug strategy last year that, among
its two dozen other recommendations, suggested a task force consider a
safe-injection site as part of a harm-reduction effort.

Some community groups have also been pressing for sites similar to the
safe-injection sites that have been introduced in some European cities.

The statement from Rock's office, relayed to local politicians and
community groups Friday, was welcomed for its move to new ground.

"This advances and elevates the discussion," said Mayor Philip Owen,
who has energetically championed the city's drug policy, sometimes
over the objections of his own councillors and party members and in
the face of determined opposition from a small but vocal group of
business owners near the drug-plagued Downtown Eastside. "If the
minister of health is saying, 'It's okay with me,' that's a big stimulus."

But the leaked news, which is likely a test flight for Rock's eventual
announcement, also produced a welter of questions, uncertainty and
concerns.

In particular, people were troubled by the requirement for written
police support, the lack of national leadership in developing a
multi-city pilot project, and the possibility that the conditions
might mean Vancouver will have to go it alone or not at all.

All were concerned about the difficult of asking any police force to
provide a written statement saying it supports an activity that is,
under current laws, illegal.

"Can they professionally do that? That's an interesting academic
question," said Owen.

"That's kind of an impossible hurdle," said Warren O'Briain, the
director of community development at AIDS Vancouver, which is part of
a coalition of groups that has been pushing to see a safe-injection
site established. "We're thrilled that the federal government is open
to looking at conditions under which safe-injection sites could open,
but we question some of these requirements."

He said only elected representatives, not the police or health board,
should be asked to provide support.

And Dean Wilson, the spokesman for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users, said it's simply impossible for the police to provide explicit
written support.

"They cannot legally come out and say that -- it's
ridiculous."

Wilson said police might be able to write something softer, for
example, that they support Vancouver's comprehensive drug policy, but
it's unclear at this point how explicit Health Canada will require the
support to be.

Chief Constable Terry Blythe could not be reached for
comment.

Then there's the question of other cities participating.

Local community groups had been lobbying the federal government to do
a clinical trial of safe-injection sites, since that would guarantee
that several cities would be involved and would give it a scientific
framework.

The mayor has always insisted that Vancouver would not open a
safe-injection site unless other Canadian cities did the same and he
had anticipated a national pilot project involving six to eight cities.

"I guess if it ends up we're the only one, we'll have to deal with
that, but I don't look favourably on it," Owen said.

Under the conditions proposed, it would mean Vancouver would likely be
put in the position of leading a charge to encourage other cities to
open similar sites -- a difficult proposition considering it has taken
four years of conferences, seminars, public meetings, and field trips
to Europe to get its own politicians and residents onside.

"There's no real indication other cities are interested," Owen said.
"Not that many have advanced to our level." That's largely because no
other city has such an in-your-face drug problem as Vancouver.

Wilson said that Rock should show some leadership and push other
cities to join a pilot program.

"This is the gutless way out. He's got to say, 'This is so important
that these people have got to come along with us.'"

Wilson said there's an obvious need for a safe-injection site in
Montreal, in the open-drug market in the city's east end.

But he also praised Rock for creating an approval mechanism that is
community-based.