NHA'S CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER SUPPORTS SAFE INJECTION SITES

The Health Officers Council of B.C. is calling on the Ministry of
Health and regional health authorities to make safe injection sites
for intravenous drug users available across the province.

Members of the council met in Prince Rupert in October to discuss the
issue, and passed a resolution supporting safe injection sites as
part of regular addictions services.

The resolution said Vancouver's Insite supervised injection site has
been thoroughly studied and found to provide valuable care with, "no
adverse consequences."

"One of the things we considered is the evidence supporting the safe
injection site in Vancouver. It definitely shows positive benefits to
the neighbourhood," Northern Health chief medical health officer Dr.
David Bowering said.

"It was really to lend our endorsement to harm reduction in the form
of safe injection sites."

Peer-reviewed studies have appeared in medical journals including The
Lancet and Journal of the American Medical Association supporting the
site's benefits to drug users and community members, Bowering said.
Addicts using Insite are less likely to die of overdoses or be
infected with blood-borne diseases, like HIV/AIDS, and more likely to
seek treatment.

Bowering said communities like Prince George should be discussing if
a safe injection site could benefit the city. Prince George has a
concentrated area of drug use in the downtown core and rising levels
of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.

"(But) there would be an awful lot of work to do before we get to
that point. Northern Health has no appetite for imposing something
like that until all the discussion has taken place," he said.

"Arguably we don't have the resources, if we did want to go ahead with one."

A number of agencies in the community are already working on the
issue, he said, and getting neighbourhood stakeholders and the public
onboard would have to be part of the process. Bowering said he
supports safe injection sites, because they reduce the harm drug
addicts cause themselves rather than just treating it after the fact.

"Harm reduction is a reasonable thing to do, given a bad situation," he said.

"In 2005, the council... Advocated taking a public-health approach to
the regulation of psychoactive drugs. Do we have to stick with a
model that obviously doesn't work?"

By making psychoactive drugs - narcotics like marijuana, heroin and
cocaine - illegal, it creates a market for criminals to produce and
sell them, he said.