CANADA: Vancouver's Safe Site Popular with Junkies

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

CANADA: Vancouver's Safe Site Popular with Junkies

Toronto Star (12.26.03) - Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Amy Carmichael

The roughly 5,000 heroin addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood prefer the city's first legal supervised safe injection site to drug use on the street, but some fear one such site is not enough. "All the research on different sites anywhere in the world shows that the idea of having one in a city is not enough," said Ann Livingston, a project coordinator with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. "The Downtown Eastside needs a minimum of four with staggered hours and each with a different feel [and] different setting to attract different groups of people."

Another problem in Vancouver is an increase in crack smoking, with smokers spreading hepatitis C through burns and splits on their lips. About 90 percent of intravenous drug users have hepatitis C and some 30 percent have HIV. The injection site built an inhalation room, and the staff is lobbying for an exemption to let people smoke crack there.

John Turvey, who found Vancouver's first needle-exchange program, thinks the facility might be over-emphasizing harm reduction. "What about abstinence and the 12 steps?" he asked.

David Ramsay of Vancouver Native Health said the injection site enables addicts, and that it is wrong to fund the injection site when there is a shortage of detox beds.

But workers at illegal safe injection sites that have operated for years say they do help people get off drugs. Maxine Davis, director of the Dr. Peter Centre, said five users have quit during the year and a half their center offered an injection site as part of its day health program which includes art and music therapy, counseling, hot meals, showers and medical services. Unlike at the official site, the police could charge users at the Dr. Peter Centre.
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