SAFE-INJECTION SITES ON WAY, CRITICS FEAR

City Sanctions Feasibility Study for Program

A city-sanctioned study is looking into the feasibility of
Vancouver-style safe-injection sites in Toronto, but critics fear the
study's support for such sites is a done deal.

The study, part of Toronto Public Health's drug strategy, comes as
Vancouver's six-year-old InSite program faces increasing doubts over
its own future. The federal government wants it shut and has appealed
a 2008 B. C. Supreme Court ruling that allowed it to continue operating.

"It's getting pushed out of Vancouver and they want to move the
problem somewhere else, but we don't want it here," said Rob Ford,
city councillor for Etobicoke North. "My residents don't want it, I
don't want it and I'll do everything in my power to stop it. Who's
going to want to live in a community that's invaded every day and
night by drug users?"

Although commissioned under the city's Toronto Drug Strategy, the
funding for the study has come from the Ontario HIV Treatment
Network, an independent nonprofit organization.

Mr. Ford led opponents of the controversial drug strategy when
councillors passed it in December 2005.

"You don't condone and enable drug use -- it's illegal. How can you
say you're helping people when you're enabling them?"

Supervised injection sites, like the one in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside, offer a controlled environment for people to use drugs
purchased elsewhere.

Dr. Carol Strike of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is
leading the study with Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi of St. Michael's Hospital.
She emphasized the limited scope of the study, which will also
examine site options in Ottawa.

"We're not recommending establishing any site. We want to understand
if it makes sense to have one in either city. Not just how many, but
if it makes sense to have one at all," she said.

The research will focus on the potential impact a safe-injection site
would have on drug use in the city, and whether it could cut
transmission of diseases such as HIV or hepatitis B and C.

The city already offers a needle-exchange program that experts say
have decreased infections and other health problems related to drug use.

That's not enough for Maureen Gilroy, a former city-council candidate
and member of Citizens for a Better Toronto, a group that opposed the
drug strategy.

She says needle exchange encourages drug use and fears the injection
sites could do the same. Instead, she wants more done to get people off drugs.

"I've been to the clinics where they distribute needles. You walk in
there, and they hand them out, no questions asked. There's no effort
to get them to stop," she said.

According to Dr. Strike, injection sites around the world offer a
wider range of services for addicts, which her study will examine.

"Needle exchange provides injection equipment, education and other
services to people. With supervised consumption, you get all those
things, plus a place to use drugs. They would also offer a range of
medical and social services beyond that which a needle exchange
would," she said.

She encourages residents to air their concerns, saying the
researchers want to hear from as many perspectives as possible,
whether their opinions are positive or negative.

"In some places it's not always well understood. Nobody has looked at
this in Toronto and that's why we want to make sure we hear all
voices," she said.

"We want to better understand their concerns about supervised sites
and drug use in the community."