SAFE INJECTION SITES WILL OPEN WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION

Minister wants to wait for Supreme Court ruling

Addiction support groups are preparing to open safe-injection sites
for drug addicts in Montreal and Quebec City next June, even if the
province doesn't approve them.

The legality of Canada's only safe-injection site in Vancouver will be
tested by the Supreme Court of Canada next spring and Quebec's health
minister has said he will wait for the decision before taking a
position on the issue.

But a coalition of support groups working with drug addicts contends
the sites are a matter of utmost urgency because the transmission of
HIV and hepatitis C is reaching epidemic proportions in the province.

About 68 per cent of the estimated 15,000 injection-drug users in
Montreal have hepatitis C, while 19 per cent of them are HIV-positive.
In Quebec City, the proportion is similar with 64 per cent of users
- -between 3,000 and 6,000 -carrying hepatitis C and 11 per cent with
HIV.

"We cannot wait any longer. It's worrying and it's a question of
public health," said Louis Letellier de Saint Just, lawyer and
president of the board of Cactus Montreal, a community group offering
help and clean needles to drug users. "These people are in distress
and the time has come to give them access to health services."

Letellier de Saint Just stressed addicts are difficult to get in touch
with and the supervised injection sites are a gateway to counselling
and health services.

In 2008, then-Quebec health minister Philippe Couillard said the
province was going ahead with a pilot project in Montreal to open a
safe-injection site, but his successor, Yves Bolduc, quickly
overturned that decision a few months later.