ADDICTS TO LEARN HOW TO SAFELY INJECT INTRAVENOUS DRUGS

VANCOUVER -- Strategies for injecting heroin and cocaine in the safest way
will be taught at a safe-injection demonstration site opening on Sunday in
the heart of Vancouver's drug-infested Downtown Eastside.

"There's a right way and a wrong way to insert a needle in a vein," nursing
administrator Alan Wood said in an interview.

Drug users and curious others will be shown controversial practices,
including strategies on how to take care of their veins, how to do a proper
tourniquet and how to ensure equipment is sterile.

Although active users will be there, the demonstrations will not make use
of illegal drugs.

Maxine Davis, a spokeswoman for the group setting up the site in a church,
said the demonstrations are to educate the community, not to encourage drug
use or make addiction easier.

"Like with anything else, education and comprehensive information is the
best way for someone to make an informed decision," she said.

The demonstration site, which is to remain in operation for four days, is
sponsored by the Harm Reduction Action Society, a group of health-care
professionals, drug users and relatives of addicts.

The temporary site is the most recent effort by some health-care
professionals and activists across the country to push the government to
approve projects that will evaluate the effectiveness of facilities where
addicts can use illegal drugs safely.

Addicts who use needles accounted for about 60 per cent of the 4,000 new
hepatitis C infections in Canada in 1999. About 34 per cent of the 4,190
new HIV infections were among injection-drug users.

Research has shown that safe sites in some European countries have reduced
the number of cases of hepatitis C and the prevalence of HIV infections
among intravenous drug users by providing clean facilities and teaching
more effective ways to inject.

The injection sites also reduce the incidence of drug overdose and serve as
a gateway into medical rehabilitation for people who usually have minimal
contact with the health-care system.

Although safe injection sites were first proposed in Vancouver at least
eight years ago, and evaluation projects have been repeatedly recommended
by numerous health-care professionals in Canada, none have yet been set up.

Dean Wilson, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, told
reporters that addicts will open their own safe injection site soon if the
government does nothing. "There's some urgency. We're dying," he said. "It
was declared a public-health emergency [in Vancouver] three years ago.
Inaction now is tantamount to criminal activity."

In a report released yesterday, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network renewed
the call for evaluation of safe injection sites.

Thomas Kerr, a Vancouver-based researcher who worked on the report, said 11
municipalities in Canada have expressed interest in opening safe injection
sites.

He anticipates the first safe injection site in Canada may be opened next
year in Montreal or Quebec. "They are on the cusp of a major explosion if
they do not do something soon," he said.

With 4,800 drug addicts and 2,000 deaths in the past decade from overdoses
of illegal drugs, Vancouver has the most apparent drug-related problems in
the country. Harm-reduction measures, however, have met with stiff
opposition from the business community in the Downtown Eastside.