TORIES TO LET INSITE CLOSE

'We'll let the project finish and then we'll make a decision:' MP

Vancouver's safe injection site will be forced to close its doors
Sept. 12 before the Tories decide whether to restart the controversial program.

"We'll let the project finish and then we'll make a decision,"
Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, who is parliamentary secretary to
Health Minister Tony Clement, told Metro Vancouver Wednesday.

City Drug Policy Co-ordinator Don MacPherson told News 1130 the move
would be a "significant step backwards. There would be a great many
citizens of Vancouver who would be quite upset about the federal
government meddling in local affairs."

Insite has operated for three years through an exemption of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Prime Minister Stephen Harper
would have to approve another exemption. Until Wednesday, the
Conservatives and Health Canada officials had been noncommittal,
saying only that they were reviewing the research.

Gillian Maxwell, a spokesperson for Insite For Community Safety, was
shaken by Fletcher's remarks. "If the doors close many people will
die," she said. "It's playing with people's lives."

Alan, who didn't want to give his last name, knows that first-hand.
He's a heroin addict who overdosed recently. It took 15 minutes for
Insite staff to revive him. "If I had been anywhere else, I'm sure I
wouldn't be alive today," he said.

Yesterday, supporters gathered at Vanier Park to erect 336 wooden
crosses the number of overdoses at Insite during an 18-month period
monitored for a study published Wednesday in the International
Journal Of Drug Policy.

Previous research has found that about 4 per cent of overdoses result
in death. None of the total 450 overdoses at Insite proved fatal.

Alan warned against shutting the site down. "It's going to go back to
the days of people dying in the back alleys," he said.