PROTESTERS TO MARCH FOR FIXED-SITE NEEDLE EXCHANGE

For the last year, Kim Freeman has watched her friends sharing
needles and crack pipes and developing increasing health problems.

"People are getting sicker and sicker and, oh man, hep C is spreading
like wildfire," said Freeman, 45, who has used drugs for most of her life.

The change stems from the closure a year ago of the needle exchange
on Cormorant Street, said Freeman, who uses heroin and crack.
Landlords evicted the service in the wake of neighbours' complaints
that users loitered outside the building, leaving behind dirty
syringes, blood and human waste.

For 12 months, intravenous drug users in Victoria have had to rely on
the mobile needle exchange or picking up clean needles when they
visit a clinic.

But the mobile exchange does not work within a two-block radius of
St. Andrew's Elementary School, even though it's an area where many
street people hang out, so many of Freeman's friends are reusing
needles or borrowing them from acquaintances. The no-service zone,
bounded by Blanshard, Yates, Balmoral and Chambers streets, takes in
Our Place and AIDS Vancouver Island.

It's not reasonable to expect addicts to go looking for clean
needles, Freeman said. "You want dope now if you are a junkie."

A group is planning a protest march tomorrow to demand an end to the
no-service area and the opening of fixed-site needle exchanges and
supervised consumption services.

Kim Toombs, spokeswoman for Harm Reduction Victoria, is helping with
the March for Dignity, which will start at noon at Vancouver Street
and Pandora Avenue to mark the one-year anniversary.

Toombs is frustrated the city has gone for an entire year without a
fixed-site needle exchange, and says it's a public-health issue. "For
[Vancouver Island Health Authority] to deny them these services means
they are not doing a very good job of maintaining public health."

Allison Cutler, community health executive director for VIHA, said
the search is continuing for a needle-exchange site or sites that
meet the needs of clients while being acceptable to the broader
community. One option is a combination of a network of fixed sites in
locations such as health clinics and pharmacies and mobile services, she said.

Katrina Jensen, AIDS Vancouver Island executive director, said it's
too early to say whether infection rates have increased since the
needle exchange closed.