CAPITAL DOESN'T NEED INJECTION SITE

Do we really need a safe-injection site in downtown Victoria? Or in Saanich
or Victoria West or Esquimalt?

A visit by two Capital Region MLAs and Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe to the
newly-opened safe-injection site on Vancouver's downtown eastside left all
three agreeing that Victoria's intravenous drug use problems don't yet
warrant building a similar type of facility here.

It's clear that Greater Victoria isn't at the point where addicts are dying
right and left in the same numbers as those in the most troubled region of
our larger neighbour across the water.

Victoria-Beacon Hill MLA Jeff Bray, a former social worker who spent time
working in Vancouver, referred to the eastside as a "melting pot of misery"
and a place that is "indescribably terrible" for the way people seem to
have little or no hope of improving their lot in life. We believe he hit
the mark when he stated that what Victorians would consider the "worst
Friday night imaginable" when it comes to drug-related activity here is the
equivalent of "10:00 every morning" on Vancouver's eastside.

That may be true. But at the same time, we can't ignore the fact that about
2,000 people in the region are confirmed users and need help.

Talk to street nurses or people involved with the Outreach Services Clinic
in Fernwood or the local IV drug users support group, for example, and
you'll hear that people are still using in back alleys or doorways under
unsanitary and often unsafe conditions in the Capital Region.

It's all a matter of scale. Where the scale of the problem is
unquestionably large in Vancouver, it is less clear just how many people
have died in circumstances related to fixing in Victoria.

Today we are very much living in a province where the bottom line is the
bottom line, and numbers mean everything to those in power. That means
unless the situation gets drastically worse around the Capital Region - as
in more people overdosing and even dying - it's unlikely that much more
money will be spent on tackling the problem of IV drug addiction, let alone
creating a safe haven for those who do use.

The City of Victoria's Downtown Action Plan, unveiled by Lowe and
representatives of the Vancouver Island Health Authority last January,
called for the creation of a $1 million sobering centre to help with the
treatment of local addicts and alcoholics.

Such a centre, which will without a doubt help provide guidance toward
accepting help and perhaps even peel some people away from the destructive
path that is drug addiction, is much needed. The key will be getting people
to use it, once in operation.

Essentially, Vancouver's safe injection site is a last-ditch effort by a
desperate community to try and save some of the lives of people who have
fallen deep into the trap of IV drug addiction.

We agree that Greater Victoria needs facilities to help people who are at
the end of their rope and are at risk of overdosing. But spending large
amounts of money on what seems to be a stopgap measure is not the way to go
here.

Rather, continued improvements need to be made in the area of outreach
services, where addicts can be helped where they are, which is downtown in
many cases.

The time to save lives is to catch people before they get too far down the
road to despair.