WAR ON DIRTY NEEDLES

Following in the footsteps of successful programs in southern Alberta, new
measures are being taken to keep dirty needles off Grande Prairie streets.

The Community Safe Streets committee officially unveiled the first bright
yellow needle deposit box downtown Wednesday as part of an initiative to
keep the streets clean and protect people from contracting diseases through
contact with contaminated needles.

"We identified a need many months ago when an abundance of dirty needles
were reported in parks, back alleys and even hotel rooms," said Brenda
Moore, executive director of the HIV North Society. "This is an opportunity
to dispose of them properly. It's not a huge problem yet but we want to be
very proactive in this. It's important the needles aren't left around in
playgrounds and on the streets where children can find them."

The receptacles will give injection drug users a place to safely dispose of
needles, which are occasionally contaminated with disease agents like HIV
and hepatitis. According to Health Canada statistics, 45 per cent of cases
of HIV are contracted because of intravenous drug use.

"We've seen significant use of needles in the city. The year before last we
had 12,000 needles in our exchange program and last year we had 25,000,"
Moore said. "We're not sure if the increase is due to more people injecting
or because they're accessing our program more. Cocaine seems to be the drug
of choice in Grande Prairie and some users will use 25 to 30 needles a day."

A similar program has been in place in Calgary for two years, with Edmonton
implementing its own needle box plan back in March. The success of the
Calgary initiative - more than 10,000 needles were deposited within the
first year - prompted the HIV North Society, AADAC, Mistahia, the South
Peace Social Planning Council, the RCMP and the Downtown Association to
consider a similar arrangement for Grande Prairie.

"It's always great to look at others and learn lessons so we don't make the
same mistakes. They have found that some locations work better than others
and we're learning from them," Moore said.

"If this project prevents one child from picking up a needle or one person
from being infected from a dirty needle, then it has been worthwhile," said
Barry Robinson of the South Peace Social Planning Council.

"This is a very worthwhile community venture. We want to raise awareness of
intravenous drug use in Grande Prairie," said Hilary Wynters, medical
officer of health for the Mistahia Health Region.

"We spend a lot of time working on the preventative end of communicable
diseases. We want to have more locations for these boxes, not just in the
downtown area, and we hope to have them in place in time for our fall
campaign."

Once the remaining nine needle receptacles are in place within the city
limits, Wynters said the program may go on the road.

Please see NEEDLES, Page 4"It's about providing information and education
on the safe disposal of needles," she said. "We'll see how it does. We want
to spread information on intravenous drug use to other communities in the
Peace Country through Mistahia and the Peace Health Region."

David Biltek, owner of Travelhandlers where the first box is located, said
although he hasn't seen much evidence of drug use in the area, he was more
than happy to donate the space.

"We offered this location because we felt it might be a good place to start
it. It's convenient, it's well-lit and since it's private property we
didn't have to worry about approval," he said.

"We would just as soon the needles were left in the box than in the parks."