A COURAGEOUS ACT

When it comes to our relationship with the big city to the west, we
like to keep our distance. Oh, we like Vancouver's parks and theatres,
and it's great fun to take the visiting relatives to Granville Island
and for gelato in the West End, but we don't see Vancouver's problems
as our problems.

And that brings us to safe injection sites. Vancouver, Health Canada
and the provincial health ministry have, quite courageously, opened
the first clinic in North America where addicts can inject their drugs
with clean needles in a supervised setting. It is a health issue,
proponents say, and will save lives. Addiction, they say, can't be
addressed as a criminal problem. We've tried that and it doesn't work.
The site won't supply addicts with drugs, but it will make counselling
available and provide resources for addicts wanting help.

So far this year, 37 people have died of drug overdoses. In the last
five years, that number is 309, with another 524 drug users dead from
AIDS. Those people come from all over the province, including Burnaby.

No child wants to grow up to be a drug addict and live from fix to fix
on the street. But we do know some addicts turn their lives around. If
the safe injection site can keep those people alive long enough to
make that change, it will have fulfilled its mandate and more.