SWISS TOUR OF INJECTION SITES PLANNED

The fact a team from Victoria is heading to Europe to check out supervised
injection sites might lead one to believe such a facility is much closer to
becoming reality.

"From our perspective, Europe - if you're going to be building any facility
for either a safe injection or anything else - that is the place to learn
from," Mayor Alan Lowe said Monday.

Lowe, Vancouver Island Health Authority chief medical health officer Dr.
Richard Stanwick and CEO Richard Waldner, city manager Joe Martignago and
special projects coordinator Nancy Taylor are travelling to Bern,
Switzerland and Frankfurt, Germany for five days next month to investigate
the European experience.

Stanwick says the group doesn't plan on duplicating any of the research
work done before the Vancouver supervised injection site, Insite, opened in
2003.

"We want a departure from that," he said, comparing a potential Victoria
service to Insite. "In many ways theirs was the BMW of sites - being the
first one in North America, it has to be the best and it has to succeed.
We're looking at more of a Volkswagen model."

Where Insite is a single, stand alone structure, Stanwick sees the
possibility of facilities being made available to intravenous drug users in
Victoria at several different existing health-care agencies. Doing so would
offer a way of cutting down on both the cost of implementation and on lineups.

He said through discussions with counterparts in Europe, a plan may be
brought forward that could "satisfy all of the needs of injection drug
users on the streets of Victoria, whereas in Vancouver it satisfies about
one-sixth."

From the standpoint of VIHA, which would administer such facilities in
Victoria, Stanwick said he needs to financially justify to the board the
rationale for instituting safe injection services in Victoria. The
fact-finding mission is one way of gathering that information, he said.

A safe injection site could, among other things, reduce the spread of AIDS
- - "one case prevented would pay for the trip" - the number of ambulance
trips and emergency room time.

"(Waldner) wants to know what sort of pressure will this take off the
health-care system," Stanwick said.

One-on-one discussions with fellow medical practitioners could well provide
solid practical advice to use in his final report, he said.

The trip and interviews and meetings are being organized by VIHA, which
would be in charge of any supervised injection site in the Capital Region.

While Insite has been, from most reports, a success, Lowe said other models
may be better suited for a smaller centre such as Victoria.

"Before we move forward we need to actually do our homework," he said,
adding that Victoria city council remains supportive of such a facility.

Council last year approved a harm-reduction policy that endorsed a four
pillars approach - treatment, prevention, housing and enforcement.

Among activities the Victoria delegation plans for the May 8 to 13 trip are
visits to supervised sites, and talks with drug users, police, politicians
and health officials to find out "what works and what didn't," Lowe said.

The trip is being paid out of a federal-provincial fund for "broad
harm-reduction feasibility."

Once the group returns, open meetings and forums will be scheduled.

"We have to have an informed and knowledgeable public before we proceed on
this subject," Stanwick said.