HEALTH CANADA DEFERS DECISION

VANCOUVER - Health Canada has put off making a final decision on
Vancouver's safe injection site.

In a terse news release issued late Friday, Health Minister Tony
Clement said more research needs to be done on how to get addicts off
drugs.

"Given the need for more facts, I am unable to approve the current
request to extend the Vancouver site for another three and a half
years," said Clement.

He said a decision on the Vancouver application will be made by Dec.
31, 2007.

"We believe the best form of harm reduction is to help addicts to
break the cycle of dependency," he said. "We also need better
education and prevention to ensure Canadians don't get addicted to
drugs in the first place."

Clement said that in the meantime additional studies will be conducted
into how supervised injection sites affect crime, prevention and treatment.

Health Canada posted the release on its website after the close of
business Friday. Erik Waddell, a spokesman in the minister's office,
said Clement had no plans to make himself available to explain the
decision.

The Vancouver injection site will stay open while the studies are
conducted. Called Insite, the pilot project allows addicts to shoot up
their own heroin or cocaine in the presence of a nurse to prevent overdoses.

It was slated to close Sept. 12 if the Conservative government refused
to renew a three-year exemption under Canada's drug laws.

The site is funded by the provincial government, although Ottawa has
provided money for research.

Heather Hay, director of addiction services, HIV and AIDS Services, at
the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, was enthusiastic about the
news.

"We're really pleased about the extension for the exemption," said
Hay. "We' ve been confident there would be some level of extension and
that there would be business as usual at Insite.

One of the leading authorities on HIV and AIDS, Dr. Julio Montaner,
was pleased with the announcement but expressed some concern.

Montaner, the clinical director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS, said he was pleased with the extension "but some of the
wording of the news release generates some concern on our part."

He pointed to the question posed in the news release: Do safe
injection sites contribute to lowering drug use and fighting addiction?

"That's a broad question," said Montaner. "Injection sites are part of
a broad strategy to deal with the problem of drug addiction.

"The injection site is a strategy we are utilizing to access and
entrench drug addicts who are not accessing the health care system."

Montaner conceded that more research can be done.