SAFE-INJECTION SITES TO GET FEDERAL OK

Health Canada Will Accept Proposals From Cities to Aid Drug Users

MONTREAL -- Health Canada is reviewing the criteria for safe-injection
sites for drug addicts and will be ready to accept proposals from
interested cities by the end of this year.

The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act has already been reviewed to ensure
there is no legal impediment to creating centres where intravenous drug
users could safely inject their drugs.

The ministry is now shaping the guidelines under which cities could make
proposals to open a safe-injection centre, Farah Mohamed, a spokesperson
for Health Minister Anne McLellan, said yesterday.

"We're in the process," Mohamed said. "The minister, by the end of this
year, will be able to accept proposals (from individual cities)."

Mohamed said it would take 60 days for Health Canada to review each
proposal. Upon approval, the city would be free to establish a
safe-injection centre.

Since proposals will be welcomed by the end of this year, that opens the
door for Canada's first federally approved injection site sometime in 2003.
A report in Montreal Le Devoir yesterday said Health Canada would not play
a role in funding the injection sites but Mohamed said no decision has been
made.

"There's been some people saying they think Health Canada should fund it,
but we're not at that stage yet to even determine the amounts of money it
would cost," she said, adding that a decision on funding would come only
when a prospective safe-injection site is identified.

One person who feels Health Canada needs to play some role in paying for
the sites is Ralf Jurgens, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS
Legal Network.

"Health Canada needs to at least co-fund these safe-injection facilities,"
he said.

The legal network completed a report in April calling for the creation of
trial safe-injection sites citing a Canadian Medical Association Journal
article from August 2001 that supports its position.

"Supervised injection rooms are a logical next step," the article stated,
"one that combines the merits of realism and compassion." A safe-injection
site differs from a needle-exchange centre in that it would provide
intravenous drug users with trained medical professionals to monitor the
injection of drugs.

There are 125,000 intravenous drug users in Canada, according to the
HIV/AIDS legal network, and Jurgens said these people are at a high risk of
exposure to hepatitis C, HIV and overdoses.

"Safe-injection facilities help address those issues," Jurgens said.
"Governments have not done enough to prevent the spread of these infections
among drug users."

The legal network report also quotes a 1998 study that estimated the direct
and indirect costs of HIV and AIDS attributed to intravenous drug use in
Canada would amount to $8.7 billion over six years if current trends continue.