INJECTION SITE OPERATOR LOBBYING OTTAWA

The non-profit organization that operates the city's supervised
injection site has launched a letter writing campaign to encourage
Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep the facility open.

The PHS Community Services Society, which operates Insite at 139 East
Hastings in conjunction with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority,
began the campaign in the Downtown Eastside last week.

Yesterday, the PHS and volunteers set up a table outside the Carnegie
Centre at Main and Hastings to collect letters from drug users and
non-drug users. Over the weekend, volunteers collected letters in
Grandview Park on Commercial Drive.

The campaign's first table was set up last week inside Pigeon Park
Savings, a PHS-run bank across the street from Insite. As of yesterday
morning, Nathan Allen, the bank's manager and an organizer of the
campaign, said volunteers collected a couple hundred letters.

"It's not like pulling teeth-it's really easy," said Allen, noting
some of the letters are one paragraph long and others two pages. "We
want the government to know that this is affecting real people and
that's the goal is to have real personal letters and personal stories
from folks."

He shared one brief letter with the Courier. "I believe that the
Vancouver safe injection site should remain open," the author wrote.
"Myself, I am one week shy of 10 months being sober, and I have a lot
of gratitude for Insite. And as I've been injecting in alleyways and
bathrooms, etc., I'm almost 100 per cent sure that I would not be here
today to write this letter if not for the safe injection site."

The majority of writers are signing their names to their letters.
Though more than half are current or former drug users, Allen pointed
out "regular Vancouverites" have written letters of support.

So far, Allen said volunteers haven't had any detractors sign letters.
The campaign is also considering visiting business owners in the
Downtown Eastside to lobby their support for the injection site.

The fact that the PHS operates Insite is not a motivating factor in
ensuring the site remains open, Allen said. It costs about $2 million
a year to operate the facility, which is open seven days a week from
10 a.m. to 4 a.m. "That's not my motivation in terms of who gets the
contract or whatever for the safe injection site," he said. "What
we're asking for is for this renewal [of Insite]. Myself and other
activists have been working on this issue for a while and really care
about it."

Insite, which opened in September 2003, is a scientific research
project and the only legal injection site in North America. The
facility operates under an exemption from Canada's drug laws. The
exemption expires in September.

Police Chief Jamie Graham, Mayor Sam Sullivan and the province's
medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, all support the facility.
Research has shown the site has likely reduced overdose drug deaths,
disease transmission and helped users get treatment and counselling
for their addictions.

Vancouver-Burrard Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt has called the research
"spotty at best." Mayencourt told the Courier last week that he has
received more research papers from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS and will be reading it before making further comment on the
site.

Conservative Health Minister Tony Clement must sign off on the
exemption if the government wants the site to continue for another
term or operate indefinitely. During the winter election campaign,
Harper said he wouldn't allow taxpayers' money to be spent on drug
use.

"We'll be doing [the campaign] until there's a political commitment
out of Ottawa that it's going ahead or not," Allen added. "We just
know it would be a huge negative impact on the neighbourhood if it
closed down, and we just know so many people helped out by it that we
want to keep it going."