SAFE DRUG SITE CURBS GET FLAK

MP Predicts More Deaths If Officials Dither

Vancouver East MP Libby Davies added her voice Monday to criticism of the
qualifications federal Health Minister Allan Rock has placed on his support
for safe-injection sites for hard-drug users.

"Everybody's waiting for everybody else and as a result nothing happens,"
said Davies, the NDP MP whose riding includes the drug-riddled Downtown
Eastside. "If it comes down to a matter of 'We'll wait for everyone else,'
we'll end up with more deaths that are preventable and I think that's a
real tragedy."

Officials in Rock's office said Friday the minister will support the
controversial measure, but only if four groups -- city and provincial
governments as well as local health boards and police -- give written
support to the idea.

Davies said she is heartened that Rock is prepared to support
safe-injection sites, but ridiculed the idea that any group, especially the
police, would have to approve the sites before they became a reality.

"I don't know why it requires the approval of the police department,"
Davies said, noting the force's past opposition to safe-injection sites in
Vancouver. "This is a health issue. Why does it require the approval of the
Vancouver Police Department?"

"My feeling is that he, as the minister of health, should be really taking
the lead, because it is a health crisis that we're facing. Rather than
waiting for everyone to give approval in writing, I think he should be out
there looking at the support that already exists and looking for ways to
implement the safe-injection sites."

On Friday, Dean Wilson, spokesman for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users called the conditions "ridiculous," and Warren O'Briain of AIDS
Vancouver said they provided "an impossible hurdle."

Police approval for the sites, which would provide a safe and sterile
environment for drug users, is seen as particularly difficult because it
would mean written support from the police for an activity that is
currently illegal. It is assumed that if Health Canada were involved in
setting up safe-injection sites, the federal government would create a
Criminal Code exemption allowing possession of drugs inside such a facility.

Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen and the Vancouver-Richmond Health Board have
been openly supportive of safe-injection sites in the past. Vancouver city
council is divided on the issue, while the police have opposed the sites.
Premier Gordon Campbell has not indicated where he stands.

Richard Lee, head of the Vancouver Community Alliance, a community group
that complains city staff, the mayor and the health board pander to drug
users in the low-income neighbourhood to the detriment of other residents
and redevelopment, said his group has not passed a resolution on
safe-injection sites. But he said it opposes the government enabling drug
use or letting drug-possession charges slide.

"We have two mandates," Lee said. "The first one is to ask the three levels
of government not to spend taxpayers' money on things to facilitate and
maintain the use and sale of illegal drugs and the second [is] to ask the
Vancouver city police, because we are an organization of the city of
Vancouver, to make sure they enforce the criminal laws anywhere in the
city, north, east, south or west."

Lee said he is happy about the demands for local approval because he
believes there is sufficient opposition from the police and on Vancouver
city council to prevent the establishment of safe-injection sites.