SAFE INJECTION SITE PROVING A SUCCESS

Canadian Press

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Less than seven weeks after North America's first legal
supervised injection site opened its doors, the site's operators say they
are surprised by its early popularity.

On average, the site's nurses are supervising about 450 drug injections per
day. Since the site opened Sept. 21, they have intervened in 25 overdoses.

"If those people (who overdosed) had been on the street or in a hotel,
obviously some of them would be dead," said Mark Townsend of the Portland
Hotel Society which runs the site in conjunction with the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority.

Of the 25 people who have overdosed at the site, Townsend said at least six
of them would have died had they not been fixing under a nurse's supervision.

In 2002, 49 people died of drug overdoses in Vancouver.

Before the site opened, there was a fear that addicts would be scared away
by the surveillance cameras and institutional atmosphere of the space. The
site's operators predicted it would take about six months for drug users to
become comfortable with the staff and the concept but the service has
proven so successful, Townsend said, some users are having to wait to use
one of the 12 fixing booths.

On its busiest day, Oct. 29, the site had 525 visits.

There is no official capacity at the site but both Townsend and Viviana
Zanocco, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, said 600
visits would be close to capacity during an 18-hour day.

Many people use the site more than once a day, making it difficult to
determine the number of individuals walking through the door each day but
Zanocco said on a recent day when there were 414 injections, 244 different
people used the site.

Townsend said there is no concrete count of injection drug users in the
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside area where the site is located but said the
number is likely about 4,000.