Doctors Studying Impact of Safe Injection Site

A study by a leading Vancouver research group on overdose drug deaths
in the city is expected to answer criticisms of the supervised
injection site in the Downtown Eastside.

A researcher with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is
reviewing drug death files at the B.C. Coroners Service to determine
if Insite is having a positive or negative effect on reducing overdose
deaths.

The study will reveal where the person died, the type of drugs and/or
alcohol used and whether the deceased was a client of Insite at 139
East Hastings, the only legal injection site in North America.

"In order to comment on the impact of the safe injection site on the
rates of overdoses, we had to send someone [to the Coroners Service]
to look exactly at those sorts of things," said Dr. Thomas Kerr, a
research scientist with the B.C. Centre.

The Courier asked the Coroners Service last year for the same
information. The service said it could not provide the information
because of the time involved to review the data.

Kerr said the researcher will review the deaths that occurred two
years before Insite opened in September 2003 to the present. He
expects the study will be completed in six months, hopefully before
Insite's three-year operating plan with the federal government expires.

Depending on the results, more questions could be raised about Insite.
For example, if the majority of people died in Downtown Eastside
hotels, why didn't they use the injection site?

Despite critics of Insite such as Vancouver-Burrard Liberal MLA Lorne
Mayencourt, Kerr said evaluations conducted by the B.C. Centre show
Insite is likely preventing deaths.

He noted that between March 2004 and August 2005, 336 "overdose
events" occurred at Insite. An event is defined as an addict passing
out, turning blue or going limp and requiring a nurse to intervene.

"You would have expected that many of these overdoses would have
resulted in a death [on the street]. We can't say that conclusively,
but given what we know about the rate of fatal to nonfatal overdoses,
you would have thought that some of these 336 overdoses would have
resulted in a death."

Preliminary statistics from the Coroners Service indicate 15 people
died of an overdose drug death in the first three months of this year
in Vancouver. That compares to 12 and 15 deaths respectively for the
same periods in 2005 and 2004.

The total number of overdose deaths in Vancouver last year was 46,
with 64 in 2004 and 50 in 2003. The statistics are far below the 92 in
2001 and the hundreds that occurred in the mid-1990s.

Last week, Mayencourt told the Courier he didn't want Insite to
continue beyond its three-year pilot program, which ends in September.

Health Canada has yet to approve Insite to continue operating beyond
September. The facility is operating legally because of an exemption
made under the country's drug laws.

Mayencourt said the information coming out of Insite is "spotty at
best" and drug addicts he's spoken to call Insite "a joke." Kerr and
doctors Julio Montaner and Evan Wood of the B.C. Centre for Excellence
have since written a letter to the Courier to dispute Mayencourt's
comments.

They wrote that Insite has attracted addicts who were most likely to
inject in public and either overdose or contract HIV/AIDS through
needle sharing. They said an average of 600 injections occur daily at
Insite.