ADDICTS MAY GET SAFE SITES TO INJECT: FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL PANEL STUDIES

Idea Intended To Guard Against Infection

A special task force of federal-provincial officials is studying the merits
of creating safe injection sites for drug addicts, the Citizen has learned.

The group was established in April, as a major report prepared for the
country's health ministers was nearing completion. The report urged the
creation of the task force, and governments gave their blessing to the idea
before the report was even finalized.

The 52page report formally presented to the health ministers in St. John's
last week at their annual meeting notes that other countries such as
Germany already provide sites that drug users can visit to inject illicit
drugs under supervision to reduce the risk of infection.

The task force consists of government officials as well as representatives
from police forces, justice departments, health and social services,
addiction agencies and community groups. Its job is to conduct a
"feasibility study" on the establishment of a medical research project that
examines supervised injection sites in Canada.

Elsewhere in the report given to health ministers, governments are urged to
establish more needle-exchange programs throughout Canada and, for the
first time, create such a program on an experimental basis in prisons.

Moreover, it says the problem of illicit drug use is so severe in Canada
that governments should support clinical trials to assess whether doctors
should be allowed to prescribe heroin and other drugs to treat addicts.

The report, prepared by an advisory committee comprising federal and
provincial officials, warns that the problems associated with drug use "are
reaching crisis proportions" in many communities throughout the country.

"Canada will not be able to turn the situation around without a bold new
level of coordinated action," it warns.

"The misuse of injection drugs is a health and social issue that has and
will continue to have significant consequences for individuals, families
and communities in Canada. Failure to act now will result in escalating
health, social and economic impacts."

In recent years, the growing problem of illicit injection drug use has been
highlighted in other reports many of them written by non-governmental
agencies. The authors of the new paper describe their document as the
governments' "response" to those reports. In preparing the document, they
consulted widely with representatives from a wide variety of fields,
including the police and prisons, health and social services, community
agencies, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C groups, and illicit drug users themselves.

As such, the report claims to represent "an extraordinary level of
consensus among a broad range of governmental and nongovernmental
stakeholders and has garnered the support of senior officials."

It is estimated that up to 125,000 Canadians inject drugs, most commonly
cocaine, heroin and steroids. The addiction is strongly linked to drug
overdose, complications arising from HIV, hepatitis C, and other infectious
diseases and suicide.

Indeed, the linkage to blood-borne diseases "is a major concern and reason
for urgent action," says the report.

Before 1995, about 8.9 per cent of Canadians with HIV got the disease from
injection drug use.

By 1999, the proportion had jumped to 28 per cent. As well, it is believed
that about two-thirds of the 210,0o0 to 275,000 Canadians with hepatitis C
are current or former injection drug users.

The economic costs could extend into the billions of dollars.

In 1992, before the escalation of HIV and hepatitis C infections from drug
use, the costs (in health care, lost productivity and law enforcement) were
conservatively pegged at $1.4 billion per year. Since then, it has almost
surely increased significantly.

The report says the goals of a comprehensive strategy should be founded on
several core principles, including the acknowledgement that injection drug
use "should be regarded first and foremost as a health and social issue"
and that drug users "should be treated with dignity and have their rights
respected."

Drug users are still stigmatized and rejected in Canadian society because
of the illegal nature of their addiction, their sometimes disorganized
lives and their vulnerability to diseases, says the report.

"A significant portion of society views them as lesser persons criminals
and derelicts.

"These attitudes and misconceptions have resulted in a variety of harms,
including public apathy, undiagnosed mental illness and inaccessible
treatment and rehabilitation programs."

The report says that although needle exchange programs are well established
in some Canadian cities, they must be improved and expanded to rural
communities.

As well, it notes that despite those programs, addicts can still inject
drugs "in an unsafe or unhygienic environment," increasing the risk of
overdose and infection.

It describes how some European countries reduce those hazards by providing
injection drug sites.

It notes that in some places, the supervised sites have led to "decreased
rates of overdose, fewer needles found in the environment, fewer people
injecting in public, and reduced criminality."