WE DON'T WANT SAFE-INJECTION SITES

The B.C. Nurses' Union is pushing to have a type of mobile safe-injection
site program currently in use in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside expanded to
other cities in the province.

The reasoning is that drug use is out there already. A group of nurses walk
around the east side and provide addicts with clean needles and then watch
as they use them.

We don't buy into that argument for a minute. As we've put forward before,
you don't see groups assisting alcoholics by providing them with bottle
openers or chilled glasses filled with ice because it's safer to keep them
at home rather than behind the wheel of a car.

Now having said that, we are not against helping drug addicts kick their
habit and get back to a productive life. We realize these people need help,
but how about using the money to provide more beds in recovery centres for
addicts or establish programs to get them off the street.

Providing addicts with a safe-injection site is not the answer - short-term
or otherwise - and we don't need such a program in Richmond.