SAFE INJECTION SITE PROPOSED

Takes Addicts Off Street: Health Officer

Could Be Modelled On Vancouver Idea

Toronto should consider opening a centre where drug addicts can openly
shoot up heroin and smoke crack, says the city's medical officer of health.

"It's a new way to try and reduce the harm associated with injecting drugs
. Safer injection sites can reduce the open use of drugs on the street and
drug overdose. I think it's something we have to seriously look at here in
the city of Toronto," said Dr. David McKeown yesterday.

It's one of many strategies the city wants to discuss with citizens while
developing its approach to combatting drugs in Toronto. Two years ago, the
city formed a team to research best practices around the world in four
areas -- prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement. Now, the
team wants to present some of the ideas at four open forums, before
devising a complete plan and presenting it to council by year's end.

One idea is a supervised injection site or smoking room, like the one
opened in Vancouver two years ago.

Councillor Kyle Rae, who leads the city team, said supervised injection
sites improve neighbourhoods battling with drug use, because they take
users off the streets and into a safe place where they can access
counselling and medical care.

Users have the opportunity "to be presented with options about moving to
another drug, or moving to methadone, using counselling, getting calmness
in their lives -- which is something they don't have as they race around
the back laneways, avoiding the police ... finding their dealer and then
finding a place to shoot up," said Rae (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale).
"We have to break that cycle."

But given that the drug of choice on Toronto's streets is crack cocaine,
not heroin, and that users are spread across the city and not concentrated
in one neighbourhood, Rae was uncertain whether safe injection and smoking
sites would work.

"I'm not sure if we're ready or we need that solution yet," he said.

He is convinced, however, that the solution will require more than extra
police officers on the street.

"We tend to just throw money to enforcement, and that doesn't solve the
problem," he said. "I think we may be more successful in addressing this in
a more holistic fashion."

Other proposals include:

Mandatory drug prevention programs in high school.

More workplace-based prevention programs.

More affordable and supportive housing for users.

A drug treatment court for youth.

When asked if she would have used a safe-injection site, former heroin user
Cindy Reardon replied: "Absolutely, I would have."

It might have saved her from HIV, which she got from a dirty needle while
shooting up at a university party 10 years ago, she said.

And it would have saved the life of her partner, who died of an overdose
while alone in their apartment.

"I think that offering somebody a place to go, to make that connection that
might not otherwise be there -- it would save them shooting up in a public
safe, like an Eaton Centre bathroom," said Reardon, who is now a peer
counsellor for drug users.

Andrea Stevens Lavigne, the vice-president of education and health
promotion at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said more research
is needed on the effectiveness of supervised injection sites.

"There still isn't definitive evidence in terms of whether it's definitely
the right way to go. Certainly, there's anecdotal evidence of where there
can be some decrease in harms related to drug use.

"But I think it would have to be monitored," she said. She'd rather see a
greater emphasis on drug prevention and health promotion in the city's
strategy for fighting drug use.

"Housing, employment, access to treatment -- these are key pieces of a
strategy," she said.

The city-sponsored town hall meetings are scheduled for May 2, 3, 5 and 10,
at 6:30-9:30 p.m. The locations have not yet been announced.