NEEDLE NIRVANA

Vancouver's Legal Shooting Gallery Is Its Own Kind Of Paradise

VANCOUVER -- It's clean. It's beautiful. It smells good.

The first legal shooting gallery in North America, in the heart of the most
down-and-out neighbourhood in Canada, has the feeling of a trendy, hip club.

Clean wood floors, brightly coloured paintings on the walls, subdued
lighting. But appearances notwithstanding, the most desperate drug addicts
will be coming here to shoot their veins full of coke and heroin.

Governments have invested about $4 million in the injection site, in
Vancouver's downtown East side, to allow addicts to shoot up in total
safety. And there's no shortage of them in the area. More than 4,700
hard-drug users are here. Day and night.

In contrast to many Canadian cities, where the biggest users are dispersed
in several neighbourhoods, here everything takes place in one area five
streets long by two streets wide.

In this sad environment, the government-run injection site is like paradise
with a clean exterior and windows with blinds.

"The idea, here, is to supply a safe place for users. We consider them to
be sick people in need of treatment. Not like criminals," says Jeff West, a
manager of the site.

A television monitor shows images from nine cameras placed around the
building. After ringing the door, clients must provide their names (no need
to show ID - most don't have any), sign a form and obtain a number before
going to the waiting room.

Former drug abusers who know the area well welcome the clients. They
explain the rules from Health Canada: bring your own coke or heroin; we
don't provide drugs. And you have to inject yourself; no one can help you.
If a client needs health care or wants to stop using, he'll be sent to a
nearby room or infirmary, where a social worker or doctor will be waiting.

Clients who just want to shoot up as fast as possible will be called to the
shooting room, where 12 cubicles equipped with mirrors await.

First you must wash your hands. A nurse then gives you a kit containing a
syringe, a blue elastic band to put on your arm, a spoon, and water to
dilute the powdered drugs. After injecting themselves, the clients go to
the "chill out" room, which looks like a bar or cafe with a big counter and
divans. Here, the users can drink juice or coffee.

"We want to make sure they're not going to overdose before sending them
back in the street," West says.

The scene is surreal. While a cop displays crack he has just seized on the
pavement in broad daylight, an addict stops to offer to buy the drugs.

"Five for $40," the passer-by says, laughing.

"Scram," replies the cop, David Chow, also chuckling.

That's what it's like here. A circus. A zoo. An incredible concentration of
human misery.

"It's much worse than before," says Eric Doyon, a cop here since 1996 who
hails from Saint-Bruno, Que.

Vancouver is trying to pretty itself up for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Earlier this year, police decided to clean up by putting a cop on every corner.

"The results were spectacular," says Doyon. "Before, there were 200 people
here on the street ... it was awful. Now it's calmer."

The residents association approves. The combination of the police presence
and the opening of the supervised injection site has helped local residents
breathe a sigh of relief.

"We're talking about a clean, safe and welcoming site. That has nothing to
do with a crack house where the people are asleep on the floor, a syringe
in the hand and a bottle of booze in the other," says an association volunteer.

Supporters of the safe injection site fear the police presence will scare
away potential users.

"We're not purposely staking out the building. But if we see dealers, we
arrest them," Doyon explains.

Craig Kazuta, another cop on patrol, says it's important to keep an open
mind toward new initiatives aimed at helping addicts.

"We hope the project succeeds," Kazuta says.

It's 10 a.m. Sitting on the ground, near a trash can, Phil and Mary are
smoking crack.

They have red eyes, grey skin, thick voices and slow gestures. But they
appear to be in a good mood.

"Hi guys. I can't tell you're not from here. Watch what you say. Watch your
backs. Hang on to your bags. And never come at night," says Mary.

Phil and Mary live in the downtown Eastside, the toughest neighbourhood in
Canada. Of 12,000 residents, 4,700 are addicts. And we're not talking pot.
There's cocaine, heroin, dirty needles on the streets, crack dealers on
every corner, prostitutes, mental illness, AIDS, hepatitis C and tuberculosis.

Phil and Mary say they don't really care about the new safe injection site.

"We'll try it, why not? But I think the cops want to harass us. I don't
believe they're going to leave us alone at a place like that."

They don't believe it will change their lives much.

"I want to stop, but I can't," Phil says. "Heroin is too good. When you get
one taste, you can't take a pass on it again."

Phil, 42, is the father of a 20-year-old girl and has worked as an
inspector in roof repair, and as a ski instructor.

Mary, 33, has abused drugs her whole life, and is uneducated.

They show off their scars, wounds, and dozens of track marks all over bodies.

"I'm showing you this and talking to you to tell your readers never to
touch this. Never," says Mary, holding a piece of crack in her fingers.