NO SAFE PLACE TO SHOOT

City Balks At Injection Sites Despite Feds' OK

Political will around these parts shifts at roughly the speed of sludge in
the Don River. Slower when it comes to the issue of drugs and harm
reduction.Still, when the feds let it be known last fall that they were
open to cities setting up their own safe injection sites for addicts, it
was hoped that there would be more than a few takers. So far, only
Vancouver is known to have signed on to the pilot project.

Local advocates of supervised drug injection, like the Toronto Harm
Reduction Task Force, say the need is just as great here, where the
estimate of 18,000 addicts rivals the number in Canada's drug capital.

A study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health showed that 10 per
cent of Toronto's heroin addicts are HIV-positive. Problems are especially
serious when it comes to homeless drug addicts.

According to the mayor's task force on homelessness, 50 per cent of street
drug users surveyed tested positive for hepatitis C. These numbers are so
alarming that the city's public health department, which currently
administers needle exchange programs, supported the idea of safe injection
sites in principle a few years ago.

"It's something we support as a concept," says Shaun Hopkins, manager of
The Works. Hopkins says informal groundwork, including surveying addicts
and getting legal advice on how the sites could be administered, is already
being done.

Valerie Cartledge, an adviser to the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force,
says supervised sites could attract addicts to other assistance programs.

"I think you'd see a drop in hospital use. You'd see a drop in ODs. You'd
see people connecting," she says.

The clinics would be small and located in existing outreach centres.
Clients would go through a registration process, and their names would be
kept confidential from the police. No one would be allowed to sell drugs on
the premises.

Health Canada has signalled that the government would be willing to exempt
staff and clients from anti-drug laws. People have talked about safe
injection sites for years. They have long been reality in Amsterdam,
Frankfurt, Zurich and other European cities. Barbara Hall floated the idea
when she was mayor.

But more than a decade later, "There's no solid movement at City Hall to
get it to happen," laments Cartledge.

Indeed, city council seems unlikely to touch the issue soon. Even lefty
councillors behind the idea in principle offer only lukewarm support.

"I believe in harm reduction," says mayoral hopeful David Miller cautiously.

"If there's a need, we should do it," adds councillor Olivia Chow. "The
research seems to say it's good."

So why isn't anything happening? "It's too hot an issue for council to
handle," thinks councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski, an opponent of the
supervised-injection approach.

A pilot project could happen if Toronto's public health department
determines that addicts would use it and if city council approves it. But
it would also need financial backing, and the provincial government is
reluctant to chip in.

Last fall, Health Minister Tony Clement spoke out vehemently against the
idea, insisting that it would never happen in his province. That would
leave the ever cash-strapped city to pay for the whole project.

"The focus here is how do you stop people from this altogether," says John
Letherby, a spokesperson for the provincial ministry.

Letherby insists that supervised drug injection sites don't work and that
the only way to fight the effects of drugs is to keep educating children
about them. "It's better to put in funding for prevention," he says.

Toronto police are also far from comfortable with the idea. While police
don't make decisions on things like supervised drug sites, they would need
to agree not to arrest addicts and medical staff at the clinics. According
to Constable Shehara Valles, police are skeptical that supervised injection
sites reduce crime and drug use -- even while they have come to support
methadone clinics and needle exchanges.

Raffi Balian, an ex-heroin user now on methadone and the coordinator of
COUNTERfit, a program that works to get drug addicts off the streets, says
safe injection sites are inevitable.

"Not because there's any love for illicit drug use, but because it's
necessary," he says. With mounting health care costs associated with
addiction, Balian thinks the city soon won't be able to afford not to build
the sites.

Politically, though, the idea of helping to reduce the spread of disease
and the number of overdoses and to keep drug users alive long enough to get
clean still has some way to go.