SOCIETY VOWS SAFE DRUG SITE FOR VANCOUVER

Vancouver will be the first city in North America to offer addicts a
safe site to inject drugs, says a group of health-care advocates and
injection drug users.

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.

Added board member Ross Harvey, the executive director of the B.C. Persons
with AIDS Society: "One way or another, there will be such a facility or
facilities."

The society would like to have 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
safe-sites, 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
Zurich's infamous Needle Park, which he said attracts 25,000 drug
users from around Europe.

The city's drug policy discussion paper also mentionned heroin
maintenance programs that involve providing the drug to hard-core
users. The proposed sites will not provide drugs.

Neighborhood groups have opposed harm-reduction measures that they say
encourage drug use and draw users to the area - the highest
concentration of drug addicts in Canada.

But Thomas Kerr, author of the proposal, said such sites decrease
overdose deaths, crime and provide contact for rehabilitation. "We
believe that we'll be engaging the sickest and most marginalized drug
users in our community, drug users that are not currently in the
continuum of care..."

The society has proposed an 18-month pilot program. It is appealing
for funding from the private and public sector. Injection sites in
Europe are run with budgets from $300,000 to $2 million, Kerr said.

The Vancouver-Richmond Health Board - which has repeatedly warned
about the health disaster in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside - has said
it cannot fund safe sites because drug use is still illegal. The
society said it could seek an administrative agreement with police and
other authorities to exempt the site.