US ATTACKS CANADIAN SAFE DRUG SCHEME

The Bush administration has criticised as "immoral" a plan in Canada to
open North America's first legal safe-injection zone for drug addicts.

The "shooting gallery" is due to open later this year in Vancouver, where
up to 12 addicts at a time will be given the equipment to inject safely,
under the supervision of nurses. The scheme - to open in the city's
impoverished Eastside - is federally funded by about C$1.2m (UKP 500,000) a
year.

Viviana Zanocco, of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, said the
gallery would be exempt from federal drug laws, allowing heroin and cocaine
users to visit without fear of arrest. "They would shoot up under
supervision," she said. "It makes us the first health authority in Canada
to have this exception, that hopefully will allow us to establish
scientifically whether supervised injection sites can improve health
outcomes and reduce harm to drug users."

Similar safe-injection programmes have been set up across Europe and in
Australia, and have reduced deaths from accidental overdoses.

But John Walters, the White House "drugs czar", has criticised the plan,
claiming it will lead to more deaths. "Drug abuse is a deadly disease. It's
immoral to allow people to suffer and die from a disease we know how to
treat. There are no safe injection sites."

Canada already angered the US by planning to decriminalise possession of
small amounts of marijuana. Asa Hutchinson, an undersecretary in the
Department of Homeland Security, said this week that it was tightening
border controls. "We're concerned about the increased drug activity," he
said. "[The US] is adjusting as necessary our border inspections."

Ann Livingston, of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said letting
ad dicts inject at such sites would reduce the spread of HIV/Aids and
hepatitis. "It is simply a public health initiative to do what's logical
and compassionate and effective," she said. About 4,000 addicts live in the
downtown area where the gallery is to be sited. It has one of the world's
highest HIV infection rates.