INSITE STAFF URGED TO HELP ADDICTS INJECT

A call for staff at the city's supervised injection site to help drug
users inject drugs at the facility is under review.

Dr. Perry Kendall, the province's medical health officer, said the
provincial steering committee that oversees Insite at 139 East
Hastings in the Downtown Eastside is debating the idea.

"There are liability issues if staff or volunteers did the injecting,
there are probably professional issues if you were asking nurses to
do the injecting of illicit drugs," said Kendall, the chair of the
steering committee.

The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users wants the injection site to
help injection drug users, particularly women, who have trouble
injecting or are physically incapable of injecting themselves.

Kendall said restricting help for injecting drugs to users in certain
categories must be studied.

"How do you know they're physically incapable of injecting
themselves? There's a lot of issues around that under review at the
present time. Before a request could be made for an exemption, we
have to clear up some of those questions."

Because the service doesn't exist at Insite, drug users incapable of
injecting themselves have other users inject them outside the
facility, said Diane Tobin, president of the activist group.

And that practice, she said, poses problems.

"I know there are people who are getting fixed in alleyways by people
who are predators. They steal their money and give them bad dope. The
person needing help doesn't know if they're getting a clean needle or
it's just one coming out of their pocket that's been used 10 times on
10 other people."

VANDU formed a team of drug users last year to help users fix in the
alleys, said Tobin, noting it will continue to offer the service
until a legal alternative is established.

Tobin noted fewer women inject drugs at Insite because staff are not
allowed to help them inject. She said women have trouble injecting
themselves because their veins tend to collapse more than men's veins.

"I don't know all the reasons, but it's just a fact that women need
the help and don't go to Insite as much as men do," said Tobin,
adding she doesn't need help and uses Insite at least three times a
day to inject heroin.

Of 677 drug users studied in Insite's one-year evaluation, 205 were
women. An estimated 1,100 people are "core users" of Insite in a
population of 5,000 drug users in the Downtown Eastside.

Last Monday, Vancouver police began a policy to arrest drug users
injecting drugs within a two-block radius of Insite. Complaints from
residents and businesses about public injection drug use prompted the
police action.

Vancouver police said since Insite opened in September 2003, they
have encouraged injection drug users to shoot up at Insite instead of
in an alley or hotel.

However, police said various agencies in the Downtown Eastside
continue to pick up thousands of spent syringes a month in the area
around the injection site.

As of Thursday afternoon, police hadn't made one arrest.

Insp. Bob Rolls, police commander of the Downtown Eastside, said his
officers are fully prepared to arrest drug users but so far that
hasn't been necessary.

"I spent almost four hours in the Downtown Eastside Wednesday and
several hours out on the road walking and didn't see one case of
somebody shooting up."

Police warnings to drug users and various agencies in the Downtown
Eastside prior to the crackdown-and the media attention about the
crackdown-has obviously worked, Rolls said.

Rolls acknowledged the cold weather may have reduced the number of
drug users on the streets, but believes the police message that
public users will be charged had the biggest effect.

"But that's not to say that we aren't going to be arresting people
because I'm sure that we are."

Insite is a federal government-approved three-year pilot project that
will end in September 2006. Kendall and his committee have already
sent a letter to Health Canada requesting the facility be extended beyond 2006.