Pubdate: Fri, 23 May 2008
Source: Coquitlam Now, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008Lower Mainland Publishing Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thenownews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1340
Author: Angela MacKenzie

INSITE NO REAL HELP, WESELOWSKI SAYS

Supporters of Insite are rallying to save the supervised-injection
facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, but the co-founder of
InnerVisions Recovery Society in the Tri-Cities says Insite is only
serving to feed the cycle of addiction.

Insite is the first North American facility where drug addicts can
inject themselves in a controlled environment. The provincial
government provided $1.2 million to renovate the former retail space
with operating funding provided through Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).

The site is staffed by nurses and counsellors and is open from 10 a.m.
to 4 a.m. The facility does not provide drugs, but has the capacity
for 850 supervised injections a day.

A report on Insite by VCH states that Insite has made more than 2,000
referrals to other services and about 40 per cent of referrals to
addiction counselling. The report also states that Insite had
contributed to a reduction in the spread of HIV. Almost 500 overdoses
over a two-year period have also occurred at Insite, but with no deaths.

Proponents are lobbying the federal government to extend the
facility's exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
past the June 30 expiry date. The federal government has already
extended Insite's exemption twice before.

Billy Weselowski is the co-founder and executive director of
InnerVisions, a non-profit organization that operates centres for men
and women with drug and alcohol addictions in the Tri-Cities.

"Drug addicts spend 24 hours a day trying to find ways and means of
getting more and not having to take any consequences for doing it," he
said Wednesday.

As a former drug addict, Weselowski said he understands the situation
from first-hand experience.

"I was down there for 20 years ... I'm just saying it's not a
community and most of the people are not even from there," he said.
"It's a drug haven and there are people being exploited there on a
regular basis."

InnerVisions has been recognized for excellence in the prevention and
treatment of substance abuse by The Donner Foundation and accredited
by the Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
Weselowski has also received the Queen's Jubilee Medal for his work.

But InnerVisions has never received a referral from Insite and
Weselowski does not believe the closure of the facility would have an
impact.

"I think the real issue is how many people live in the alley right
beside it that are shooting dope," he said. "I mean it's outrageous,
absolutely outrageous. You need to go down there at 7 o'clock at night
and look in the alley. I'm talking a couple of hundred people."

He believes the funding to run the facility could be better spent on
recovery programs.

"You take some of that money and you pick up some of those people and
get them the hell off that eight-block area, first of all, and get
them around somebody who's going to be fair and firm with them and
tell them that they care about them and not just, 'Oh yeah, you're
okay, you're a winner,' ... No, I'm going to tell you what you're
going to do and I'm going to do it with you," he said, adding that he
refuses to negotiate with active drug users for the first month they
are in treatment.

He believes recovery programs like those offered by InnerVisions are
able to make a bigger difference.

"Do you know how many human beings, men and women, at our treatment
centre that I've seen after 30 days and their eyes are all clear and
they've got hope and they have some direction and their lives are
full?" Weselowski asks.

"You've got to be busy and you can't be busy at a fricken needle
exchange. It just doesn't do it and you can't be down there where the
broads are turning tricks and the guys are selling dope and the other
guy's clipping the other guy and the other guy is getting jacked up by
the balls."
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