CITY: DRUG INJECTION SITE OPENS IN DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

North America's first government-sanctioned, supervised drug injection site
has opened in Vancouver, and proponents hope it will help reduce the health
risks faced by intravenous drug users.

While the injection site will serve as a place to shoot up in a safe, clean
environment, it will also assess its own harm reduction impact through a
scientific research project.

"This is a human problem and this supervised injection site is a humane
intervention," said Liz Evans, whose PHS Community Services Society will be
operating the facility with the regional healthcare authority.

But Monday's launch was just for the media. Injection site staff were seen
turning away drug users at the door, telling them: "Come back next week."

When users are allowed into the facility, they will enter a reception area
before being directed into the injection room. Staff from the intravenous
drug user community will greet and register them. In the injection room,
users will find 12 seats where they may take their own drugs in front of
large mirrors and under medical supervision. Spoons, syringes, tourniquets,
water, and antiseptic pads will be provided.

Afterwards users will head to a post-injection area where they may "chill
out" or access other services, including treatment for injuries, addiction
counselling, and referral to drug treatment programs.

"This is not going to be a silver bullet," said Dean Wilson from the
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. "This is going to help prevent
blood-borne disease transfer. It's going to stop overdose resulting in
death. It's also going to entice people into a healthier continuum -
something that's been very difficult to do in the past."

The injection site will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m., every day of the
week. Two registered nurses and a manager will staff the facility at all
times, and an addiction counsellor and physician will be available on-call.

"I just wanted to try and make a change in the stigmas of how people with
addiction are being treated," said Tanya Jordan-Knox, a recovering drug
addict and injection site staff member.

The injection site is located in the city's drug- and-poverty-ravaged
Downtown Eastside. The B.C. Centre for Disease Control estimates that over
90 per cent of the neighbourhood's 4,700 intravenous drug users have
hepatitis C, and 30 to 40 per cent are living with HIV.

"It's time they did something like this," said Mark Fiddler, 44, a
one-and-a-half-year resident of the Downtown Eastside. "You have people
dying in the alleys."

"They need more detox and rehabilitation sites," Fiddler added.

Needle exchanges collected and distributed over 2.7 million syringes in
Vancouver last year. While an expansion of that program is in the works,
there are no plans to open more injection sites.

"One site is not going to be enough for the Downtown Eastside or Lower
Mainland of British Columbia," said Earl Crowe, an outreach worker with the
Centre for Disease Control. "We need another five sites within just miles of
this site."

Heroin maintenance programs should be the next step in the city's harm
reduction efforts, said Jenny Kwan, the member of the legislative assembly
for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant.

Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell told reporters he hopes that a site for the
safer use of crack cocaine will be in the city's future.

"We are never, ever going to cure drug addiction," said Campbell, who
opposes the legalisation of hard drugs. "But what we can do is help those
who have that addiction to stay alive, and to stay healthy until we can help
them get into some sort of treatment, and to help them live their lives."

It will cost about $2 million annually to operate the injection site.
Funding has been secured for only one year.

Harm reduction is one component of Vancouver's "Four Pillars" approach to
its drug problem; the others are enforcement, prevention, and treatment.