CITY STAFF WANT TO CHANGE THE WAY WE DEAL WITH DRUGS

Those fighting to establish safe-injection sites in downtown Vancouver got
more ammunition this week as Australia joined European nations trying such
measures to stem drug overdose deaths and push addicts off the street.

Australia's first legal heroin shooting gallery will open in Sydney next
year as part of that Commonwealth country's effort to combat illegal drug
consumption and public disorder.

The Catholic order the Sisters of Charity and Sydney's St. Vincent's
Hospital will run a medically supervised injecting room for 18 months in
Kings Cross, the local nightclub district.

Officials expect 50,000 visits a year, and believe the measure will prevent
up to 40 overdose deaths annually. The move is part of a radical revamp of
New South Wales state drug laws that also includes trials of a compulsory
treatment program for light users of heroin, speed, LSD and ecstasy.

Safe injection rooms are supervised facilities in which addicts are offered
sterile injection rigs, information about drugs and health care, and access
to medical staff.

Five injection sites operate in Frankfurt and others are found in Hamburg,
Hanover, Bremen and Bonn. Thirteen operate in Zurich, Bern and Basel. There
are also injection rooms in Rotterdam, Arnhem, Aastricht, Venlo and
Apeldoorn. (Amsterdam, which shut its badly run safe injection sites in the
1970s, now is considering re-opening them.)

Vancouver city staff travelled to the continent to scrutinize this
health-based alternative to law-enforcement's so-called War on Drugs, and
returned with a positive report.

"If we truly believe that addiction is inappropriately dealt with by the
criminal justice system, it is time to separate drug users from the criminal
elements in the illicit drug market and move them towards health services,"
planner Donald MacPherson wrote in his report.

Safe-injection sites are considered a way to achieve that because they
provide a point of contact between addicts and medical personnel.

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a New York-based
drug-policy institute created by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, is
one of the global advocates of such measures. When he was here recently, he
told me that in certain locations and some circumstances the injection rooms
are an effective way to contact the most marginalized drug users, reduce the
harm they cause themselves and the community, and restore public order.

He hailed the Australian announcement: "[Safe injection rooms] reduce drug
overdoses, reduce public drug nuisances, reduce the number of discarded
syringes found on streets and ultimately save both lives and taxpayer
dollars."

I think it's fair to say the debate locally about such controversial
measures has been difficult because of the lack of data and the pervasive
fear that such clinics send an inappropriate message to young people.

On the first point, researchers are finding injection rooms to be an
effective component of municipal drug strategies that include other services
such as needle-exchanges and various forms of maintenance and treatment
programs.

The second concern, I believe, is demagoguery: The Europeans and the
Australians care as much about their children as we do, and I suggest
medical clinics are far less glamourous to youth than the existing
subterranean drug culture.

MacPherson said in his report: "Efforts must be made to mediate this debate
and move towards an acceptance of a broad range of services for drug users
who wish to exit the drug scene and for those who are not yet ready to do
so."

But the federal and provincial governments and Vancouver city council do not
appear ready to embrace safe fixing sites. I'm told that Health Minister
Allan Rock would rather embark on a prescription heroin maintenance trial
than give the green light to Libby's Lounges, as they're dubbed by critics.

In the meantime, addicts are dying on the streets of B.C. at a rate of about
one a day.