SAFE DRUG SITES BACKED

VANCOUVER -- It's divisive. It's controversial. And it may be coming soon
to a neighbourhood near you.

Safe injection sites for hard-core drug users could be a fixture in some
Canadian cities as early as next year.

The latest move towards having long-addicted heroin and cocaine users
inject under supervised conditions came last week when Health Canada said
it was reviewing criteria for the sites and would be ready to accept
proposals from interested cities by the end of this year.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Anne McLellan said the ministry was
shaping guidelines under which cities could make proposals to open a
safe-injection centre.

Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s chief medical officer, is a solid backer of the
pilot project in a province that has its share of hard-core addicts.

Kendall believes that having safe injection sites would reduce the costs of
crime, health care, courts and social disruption.

Prevention The Ideal

"They cost the health system a lot of money because they get HIV, hepatitis
C, they overdose and a get number of other illnesses," he said.

While Kendall agrees that prevention is the ideal, he also said "we don't
do a terribly good job of that."

Under the safe-injection pilot proposal, only addicts who have been unable
to get better through methadone treatment and counselling would be
eligible, he said. The program would not be for all addicts and certainly
not for anyone walking in off the street and asking for heroin.

But the issue of safe-injection sites doesn't sit well with everyone.

"We're absolutely opposed to it because it's not resolving the problem,"
said Randy White, the Alliance MP for Langley-Abbotsford.

"The problem is people who are drug addicts need help to get off of drugs,
not to stay on drugs," he said. "It's not harm reduction, it's harm extension."