BC GROUP PURSUES SAFE SITE FOR DRUG ADDICTS

VANCOUVER, B.C. - A group of health-care advocates and injection drug
users is aiming to make Vancouver the first city in North America to
offer addicts a safe site to inject drugs.

Whether the facility is a ``hole in the wall'' or a comprehensive
health center will be determined by funding, says the Harm Reduction
Action Society, which released its pilot project proposal Friday.

The society would like to have support from all levels, ``but let's
get this straight: We are going to do it,'' said board member Dean
Wilson.

``One way or another, there will be such a facility or facilities,''
said Ross Harvey, another board member and the executive director of
the B.C. Peoples with AIDS Society.

The society wants a facility open before Valentine's
Day.

The group, formed earlier this year, recently sent consultants to
Frankfurt, Germany, where they visited five safe injection sites set
up in 1994.

The city released a discussion paper earlier this week that included a
safe-sites proposal, but Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen rejected the idea
of setting one up.

Owen said he is not in favor of a safe injection site, such as
Geneva's infamous Needle Park, which he said attracts 25,000 drug
users from around Europe. Such a site in Vancouver would be a magnet
for drug addicts, he said.

Neighborhood groups have opposed measures that they say encourage drug
use and draw users to the area, which has the highest concentration of
addiction in Canada.

But Thomas Kerr, author of the proposal, said such sites decrease
overdose deaths and provide contact for rehabilitation.