STUDY BACKS SAFE INJECTION SITES

VANCOUVER -- The first study to gauge drug addicts' experiences at
any safe injection site suggests North America's only such facility
needs to be expanded to reduce public drug use and unsafe disposal of needles.

But as the clock ticks toward the site's licence expiring on Sept.
12, the federal government remains tight-lipped about whether the
site will be allowed to continue operating under an exemption of
Canada's drug laws.

The study, which is published in the current issue of the
international scientific journal Addiction Behaviors, surveyed 1,082
injection drug users, 75 per cent of whom said the facility
positively changed their injecting behaviour.

Seventy-one per cent of respondents said using the facility meant
they weren't shooting up outside, while 56 per cent reported less
unsafe disposal of dirty needles.

Addicts who use the site -- called Insite -- inject their own heroin
or cocaine under the watchful eye of a nurse as part of a pilot
project that began three years ago.

Dr. Evan Wood, a senior author of the study, said yesterday that HIV
rates have also come down in the drug-riddled Downtown Eastside since
Insite opened. That means health-care costs have been reduced because
it costs taxpayers $250,000 to treat each person infected with the
virus, he said.

Wood is concerned that the Conservatives received a request to
continue the exemption six months ago and still haven't made any kind
of announcement so close to the licence expiring.

"I'm worried from a public health perspective about what will happen
if the site closes," said Wood, an epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre
for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and an assistant professor in the
department of medicine at the University of British Columbia.

"I think there will be such a backlash in Vancouver when we go back
to the same patterns of needles in store fronts and people injecting
in public in the tourist areas of Gastown that British Columbia will
probably not tolerate it for that long."

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement was not available for comment.

Robin Walsh, a spokesman for the minister, said no decision has yet
been made on the fate of the site.

"The minister is undertaking assessment of the pilot project and the
results to date," Walsh said from Ottawa.