MAJOR STUDY RELEASED ON HEROIN USE

ALISON SMITH: A major study was released today on heroin use. Its main
focus is a troubled part of Vancouver, the city's downtown east side. More
than three hundred drug addicts die there each year from overdoses, a grim
statistic the researchers say could be reduced with the help of a solution
now being used in Europe. The CBC's Natalie Clancy reports.

NATALIE CLANCY (Reporter): Wendy Ahmed is one of Vancouver's six thousand
injection drug users, feeding her three hundred dollar a day habit whenever
and wherever she can. Her needle or rig is clean, but they aren't always.

WENDY AHMED (Drug Addict): I've seen people pick up rigs off the ground
and, if they work, use them. It doesn't matter who it belonged to. There's
no possible, they have no inkling who it belonged to before.

CLANCY: It's a dangerous situation researchers have been studying for
years, and today a new study with a controversial suggestion. A safe
injection site like this one in Germany. Addicts bring their own drugs to a
clinic, inject them with sterile needles while medical staff keep watch in
case they overdose. Dr. Martin Shekter is the senior researcher on the study.

DR. MARTIN SHEKTER (Researcher): I consider it a public health emergency,
and safe injection rooms are one part of a solution that might help address
that problem.

CLANCY: Researchers studied 776 injection drug users over five years.
During that time, 124 died, 41 from overdoses. And they also found another
disturbing trend. Nearly thirty percent of the addicts admit to sharing
needles, and even among users who are HIV positive, twenty percent continue
to share needles.

EARL CROWE (Vancouver Network of Drug Users): Nothing gets done. I mean,
people are dying. We're losing one a day down here.

CLANCY: Advocates say the current strategy of enforcement and one needle
exchange isn't enough.

ANN LIVINGSTONE (Advocate): There are literally hundreds of people shooting
up in the alleys under the most filthy conditions imaginable. And if that's
all we can do, then we're idiots.

CLANCY: Many addicts down here say this study proves what they've been
saying for years, that safe injection sites could help prevent the spread
of HIV, could help prevent deaths due to overdose. But so far the idea has
been a tough sell. Health officials in Quebec, Ontario, and British
Columbia are considering this proposal, but this Vancouver businessman
hopes it doesn't happen.

BRYCE ROSITCH (Community Alliance): While this may or may not benefit the
individual, is it not going to, if this is the only drug injection area in
all of Canada, is it not going to attract drug users from all over North
America?

CLANCY: It may be a long way away, but the proposal for a safe injection
site is on the agenda for next month's meeting of provincial and federal
Health Ministers. Natalie Clancy, CBC News, Vancouver.