BACK INJECTION SITES, GOVERNMENT URGED

Tories Will Have "Blood On Their Hands" If Program Discontinued

The Canadian government will have "blood on its hands" if it
discontinues the operation of a supervised injection site in
Vancouver, Liberal MP Keith Martin [Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca] said
Tuesday from the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

"If the [Stephen] Harper government does not support the renewal [of
Insite in Vancouver] ... they will be committing people to more
infection, more death, more costs and more crime," said Martin, a
medical doctor. "And in that, no one wins."

Victoria's plans for a supervised injection site, or sites, are
linked to Vancouver's fate. Cities must apply to the federal
government for an exemption to federal drug laws in order to legally
operate an injection site.

B.C. political and health-care leaders were nervous Tuesday, as
federal Health Minister Tony Clement had not yet made a planned
announcement about supervised injection sites at the AIDS conference.
They rallied Tuesday for the continuation of Vancouver's site as well
as a new site in Victoria. "We need more injection sites, not fewer,"
Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall said. "The evidence is
incontrovertible."

Vancouver's clinic, Insite, where IV drug users can go to shoot up
safely with clean needles, is the only supervised injection site in
North America. However, the exemption that has permitted Insite's
three-year operation expires Sept. 12.

The Harper government has not to date been in favour of legal
exemptions to the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.

"The Canadian Conservative government has tragically taken a U.S.
war-on-drugs view of substance abuse," said Martin, foreign affairs
critic. "But this is not a criminal problem. It's a medical problem
and the proof is in the U.S. where HIV rates are higher than in any
other industrialized country."

The best peer-reviewed scientific evidence around the world shows
supervised injection sites ensure fewer people die of overdoses and
fewer contract or transmit HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C infections,
Kendall said. The presence of such clinics also increases the
likelihood drug users will seek assistance to quit and it keeps the
illegal activity off city streets, he added.

Victoria is home to about 1,500 to 2,000 injection drug users.

On Vancouver Island in 2005, there were 47 new cases of HIV infection
-- most of the people involved were intravenous drug users (44 per
cent). In 2003, the I-Track Surveillance project in Victoria reported
a 79-per-cent prevalence rate for hepatitis C among local injection drug users.

"If the federal government doesn't approve [the supervised injection
site], it will be real shame," Kendall said. "It will suggest they
don't care what the science is and that they are being guided by
other values than science."

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe suspects Clement will announce good news
this week and is optimistic Victoria's secure-injection site, or
sites, will soon be a reality. "When you work hard to put something
in place you don't just let it die," Lowe said. "We're still hopeful."

Kendall said Victoria's model would not likely be one big site "but
rather a number of small sites built into existing programs."

A six-month $300,000 study, conducted by the Centre for Addictions
Research of B.C. and funded by the Vancouver Island Health Authority
and B.C. government, is looking at supervised drug-injection options
for Victoria.

Lowe, Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill, and Vancouver Island's
chief medical health officer Richard Stanwick support a supervised
injection site in Victoria. The business community has mixed views.
B.C. Health Minister George Abbott will consider an application for funding.