Pubdate: Tue, 5 Feb 2008
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2008, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Greg Joyce, Canadian Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Insite (Insite)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

US CITIES MONITORING SAFE-INJECTION SITE

VANCOUVER -- Some of the toughest cities south of the border are 
watching Vancouver closely as they try to deal with hardcore drug 
addiction, say delegates at an international drug conference.

Deborah Peterson Small, of the New York group Breaking the Chains, 
said places such as San Francisco and New York are taking note of the 
city with the only safe-injection site in North America.

"San Francisco has started looking at safe-injection sites as an 
experiment," Ms. Small said.

"We hope that city governments in Baltimore, Newark and New Orleans 
that have significant problems with heroin and injection drug use 
will look to Vancouver as a place that provides a positive example of 
ways to reduce overdose deaths," said Ms. Small, who was one of about 
80 delegates at the conference called Beyond 2008.

The conference is one of several taking place around the world - but 
the only one in North America - that are sanctioned by the United 
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The conferences are intended to gather the best ideas to address the 
drug scourge, ideas which will be submitted to the UN this summer.

Members of Ms. Small's group have been advocates for other U.S. 
groups "to look at Canada for different ways to approach the issue of 
drug abuse and adopt some of the harm-reduction measures you've 
adopted here, including expanding needle exchange and having 
safe-injection sites."

Ms. Small isn't holding her breath that New York will have a 
safe-injection site, but said San Francisco may be the first American 
city to use the idea.

Authorities there are willing to "look at alternative approaches and 
harm reduction approaches," she said.

Insite, the safe-injection site in the Downtown Eastside, began 
operating in 2003 and is funded by the B.C. government. It allows 
people to inject their own drugs under medical supervision as a way 
to reduce harm connected to drug use.

Susan Shepherd, manager of the Toronto Drug Strategy Secretariat, the 
city's drug police office, said Canada's largest city has also 
investigated Insite. 
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