SAFE INJECTION SITE TALKS A POSSIBILITY

Kamloops residents may finally be ready to discuss the possibility for
a safe injection site, said AIDS Society of Kamloops executive
director Jo Rothenburger.

Results from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside safe injection site are in
and it appears the harm reduction approach is working. The report
suggests the clinic and staff have saved the lives of 72 drug users in
107 incidents since last March.

With 588 injections at the clinic each day, anywhere between two and
four clients are referred to addiction treatment programs daily. While
Rothenburger doesn't for a moment believe it would benefit Kamloops to
copy the Vancouver clinic in its entirety, she does feel the time is
right to at least open it up for debate.

When the talk of a safe injection site was brought up a year ago in
Kamloops, Rothenburger said the community simply wasn't ready to even
entertain the idea.

"My feeling is that they're ready now. This is a whole new thing in
Canada and people, justifiably so, were waiting to see what was
happening in Vancouver."

The Vancouver example has created a greater awareness of harm
reduction in general, she said.

"It is becoming more understood by the general population . . . the
safe injection site in Vancouver has helped that discussion along."

Kamloops faces a different reality than Vancouver, she said,
considering how spread out the drug problem actually is.

"Those people who are injection drug users are in a community so large
geographically they're not just in downtown Kamloops, they're in
Westsyde, Juniper, Sahali . . . so it's not going to be a one-shot
answer for anybody."

It is now time to ask the tough questions, she said.

"We don't know what the outcome would be until we ask the questions of
both ourselves, other community members and, most importantly, the
injection drug users."