HEROIN CLINICS DO NOT MAKE BAD NEIGHBOURS: STUDY

A three-year study of hard-core heroin users in Vancouver and Montreal
found heroin treatment clinics don't make bad neighbourhoods.

The study examined the incidence of crime and disorder in the area
around two experimental medical heroin-prescription programs in the
two cities.

"There are no negative impacts for the surrounding neighbourhood,"
Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd told The Province yesterday.

"In the vicinity where people consume heroin without carry-away
privileges, it's pretty clear that people in the surrounding
neighbourhoods need not fear harm will be done to their community."

Boyd and SFU health scientist Benedikt Fischer were two of the study's
co-authors.

"It was a carefully done study," he said.

"It is consistent with the experience in Europe. For many years in
Switzerland and Germany, for example, they have found prescription
programs for heroin addicts do not appear to have negative impacts."

When a heroin-assisted treatment clinic opened at Abbott and Hastings
streets, neighbours of an apartment complex two block away voiced
their concerns, he said.

The researchers compared data on police calls and arrests.

"Two PhD students who worked on the project walked the back alleys and
the streets around Abbott and Hastings [during daylight hours] for
three years, essentially, to count paraphernalia and injection drug
use and whether there were people using drugs," said Boyd.

The students conducted observations for a few months before the heroin
programs began, then during and afterward.

"They didn't observe any real changes," said Boyd.

In Montreal, the study looked at a clinic in a neighbourhood similar
to Commercial Drive, with many stores and restaurants.

"They were able to report very much the same finding, with a
neighbourhood that was more commercial and middle class," said Boyd.

The clients chosen for the study were addicts who had failed to
respond to methadone treatment.