16 LEGAL AGE FOR SHOOTING UP AT INJECTION SITE

Addicts as young as 16 can shoot up at the city's new supervised
injection site in the Downtown Eastside, provided they're not
first-time injection drug users.

Dr. Perry Kendall, the province's chief medical health officer, said
the decision to set the age limit at 16 prompted great debate among
members of the province's steering committee responsible for setting
up the site.

However, Kendall said the committee reached a consensus that injection
drug users 16 and older are at high risk of contracting HIV and
Hepatitis C, and need to be allowed to access the site.

"People are going to criticize us for our decision to let 16-year-old
kids come to the site, but I think that it's eminently justified in
terms of the potential health benefits."

Kendall said the Ministry of Children and Families estimates about 300
injection users between 16 and 19 live in Vancouver. Since many of
them are naive about the dangers of contracting an infectious disease,
Kendall is hoping they'll use the site-not only to safely inject
drugs, but to access counselling to get off drugs.

Teenagers seeking to experiment with drugs for the first time will be
turned down and given anti-drug counselling by the site's staff, he
said.

Kendall acknowledged that determining a young person's age without
identification is difficult, noting teenagers younger than 16 could
give false ages at the site. But, he added, "If you say you're 16, if
you look like you're 16, if you act like you're 16, if you've got
holes in your arms, the staff is probably going to assume you're 16."

In the two weeks since it opened, injection drug users have made
almost 2,500 visits to 139 East Hastings, home of Insite, North
America's first legal injection site.

Viviana Zanocco, media relations officer for the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority, said staff report that no teenagers have used the
facility, but want to emphasize it is available to them.

Zanocco said younger drug addicts could be staying away from the site
because of the perception police would arrest them for drug
possession, or place them in the care of the Ministry of Children and
Families.

"That's another situation where we're trying to say, 'You know what,
that's not going to happen,'" Zanocco said.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Chuck Doucette, the Mounties' provincial coordinator
for drug awareness, wouldn't say whether he thinks there should be an
age limit on using the injection site-only that more money has to be
spent on prevention and treatment before injection sites.

"There should be a huge emphasis on trying to get education and
treatment for the young people, and not resigning to the fact that
they're a user and let's just let them use safely."

Donald Macpherson, the city's drug policy coordinator, said the age
limit to use an injection site in Switzerland is 18, but each country
has its own rationale for allowing teenagers to fix in a site.

"The reality is, do you want to confine your 16 and 17-year-old
injectors to the back alleys while you're providing services for your
18-year-old injectors?

"If you're an injector and you're 16 years old and you've been
injecting for a few months, why the hell would I not encourage you to
use a health service?"

The Downtown Eastside is estimated to have 4,700 intravenous drug
users. Up to 40 per cent of those addicts have HIV or AIDS and 90 per
cent have Hepatitis C.