BUSINESS GROUPS SUPPORT SAFE-INJECTION SITE

Join Advocates Seeking To Keep Facility Open

Business groups say that Vancouver's safe-injection site should
remain open until long-term solutions are found to help drug addicts
kick their habits.

They are joining the ranks of AIDS doctors and researchers, social
agencies, drug addicts and their families in calling on Prime
Minister Stephen Harper to prevent the three-year-old clinic's closure.

Located in a section of Chinatown within the poverty-plagued Downtown
East Side (DES), the facility allows addicts to shoot up legally
inside its walls, but a Health Canada exemption of a section of the
Controlled Drugs and Substance Act is due to expire on Sept. 12.

"As it stands now, SIS (the safe injection site) is more beneficial
than detrimental," says Albert Fok, chairman of the Chinatown
Merchants Association, who has sent a letter to Harper. "It's been
beneficial to the community and beneficial to businesses."

Supporters and several studies say the clinic, the only one of its
kind in North America, has prevented addicts' deaths, limited the
spread of dirty needles that cause AIDS/HIV, and reduced vandalism
and break-ins in the area already notorious for drug addiction,
prostitution and crime.

"I would cautiously support it, due to the fact for the past two and
a half years we have had a decline of users shooting up in a back
alley or in front of (the former) Woodward's department store or
something like that," says Fok.

Fok adds SIS has made people more comfortable walking around
Chinatown and could help attract more customers to the historic area,
which has seen an erosion of business in recent years. In addition to
social problems on the DES, Vancouver's Chinatown has had to contend
with the growth of other Chinatowns in suburbs such as Richmond.

But Fok adds funds must be found to help SIS users end their
addictions. "Helping them has created good optics on one hand, but
costs money on the other hand."

The Chinatown Merchants Association consists primarily of 200
business operators and property owners. Fok says his group has
enhanced security in recent years and is working with other groups,
such as the Chinatown and Gastown business improvement associations,
to promote the area.

The president of the Chinatown Business Improvement Association
(CBIA) is also calling for SIS to remain open.

"If they close the safe-injection site, (the problem) comes back to
our back lane," says CBIA president Tony Lam.

Lam, who operates a small appliance store, said the clinic has
resulted in "at least an 80- per-cent cleanup" of lanes. SIS doesn't
help Chinatown business-wise, he adds, but it's better than pushing
addicts on to the street.

"Let them have a safe and clean place," says Lam.

Before he was elected last year, Harper indicated he would close SIS,
but has faced increasing pressure from health and community groups in
the rest of Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia to
keep the site open.

Local supporters of SIS also include Mayor Sam Sullivan and former
mayors Larry Campbell, now a federal senator, and Philip Owen, who
spearheaded the creation of SIS and subsequently lost the support of
his Non-Partisan Association party.

According to the peer-reviewed studies on the site, drug users
complete an average of 600 injections per day at SIS, staff have
treated 453 overdoses with no fatalities, more than 4,000 referrals
were made to counselling and other support services, and addicts who
inject there are more likely to seek detoxification. The facility has
also reduced the number of syringes discarded on the street and
curbed needle sharing, which puts a user at risk of contracting
HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C.

The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) wants
SIS to remain open, but believes the site is a short-term solution.

"Go with the SIS until there's something better around," says Dave
Jones, the DVBIA's director of crime prevention services. "The SIS
saves lives, but it's not the answer."

DVBIA members operate outside the DES, but addicts still commit theft
in the downtown core to support their habits. But Jones says keeping
SIS open will do "nothing" positive for businesses.

"The people who are frequenting the SIS are not getting better," says
Jones. "(And) they're coming into our community to commit these crimes."

Jones, a former Vancouver police officer who served as the downtown
district's commander for eight years, says a percentage of
Vancouver's population has been addicted to drugs since opium smokers
were first reported in the city during its startup days in the 1800s.
But support agencies are hampered by a lack of detoxification,
addiction and mental health facilities and affordable housing.

"Putting it very simply, SIS is a gateway to a corral where people
could get help," says Jones. "The corral hasn't been built yet."

He notes there is sufficient government money available, but nobody
has yet examined the "social services industry," in which several
groups provide overlapping services, to re-align it in "a functional way."

The Gastown Business Improvement Association, which previously
criticized the startup of SIS, is not commenting on whether it should
close or remain open.

"We don't have enough information on it to have a position," says
Leanore Sali, the association's executive director.

Since SIS launched in 2003, its nurses and other staff have
supervised a quarter of a million injections, says Mark Townsend of
the Portland Hotel Society (PHS), which operates the site. If the
injections had not occurred there, they would have taken place in
shop doorways, alleys or other locations on commercial properties, he adds.

"The main benefit is people haven't died," says Townsend.

The site has also helped to reduce "pathetic, annoying" property
crimes committed by addicts at neighbourhood businesses, he adds.

The PHS plans to keep the site going even if Harper does not extend
the deadline. "Ultimately, (keeping SIS open) is a no-brainer," says
Townsend, who calls the federal government's drug policy a "big mistake."

Harper was criticized for not attending the recent international AIDS
conference in Toronto.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates
and his wife Melinda, whose foundation recently donated $500 million
for HIV/AIDS research, were among the guest speakers.

Although Harper holds the final say over the site's future, Ottawa
does not contribute any funds to the facility, says SIS organizer
Nathan Allen. The clinic has secured funds from the province and the
city to stay open for another three years, but those dollars would
dry up if the federal exemption is terminated.

"I know there are people who would be donating money, that sort of
thing, but none of that's for sure," says Allen.

Harper has been delaying his decision on SIS until the completion of
an RCMP-commissioned study by criminologist Irwin Cohen of the
University College of the Fraser Valley.

The recently released RCMP study says the site hasn't increased crime
in the area or attracted drug users from other areas of Greater
Vancouver, which opponents feared it would do.

Cohen studied 25 English peer-reviewed journal articles and
UN-commissioned reports on injection sites in Australia, Germany,
Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands for his report, and then
applied information to outcomes SIS has achieved so far.

"I would say from a research perspective, not from a citizen's
perspective, the experiment should continue," he said.

- - with files from The Canadian Press