Pubdate: Fri, 08 Feb 2013
Source: Centretown News (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Centretown News
Contact:  http://centretownnewsonline.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2112
Author: Matthew Blenkarn

HEALTH CENTRE STUDIES SAFE INJECTION SITES

A recent fact-finding trip to Europe by members of the Somerset West 
Community Health Centre has inspired new discussions among community 
organizers about safe injection sites in Ottawa.

Two board members and an employee from the centre visited four cities 
in Germany and the Netherlands last fall to research supervised safe 
injection sites, says the centre's executive director, Jack McCarthy.

The centre paid for the trip using leftover reserve money from 
donors. None of the funds came from major funders such as the city or 
from the Champlain Local Health Integration Network.

Supervised injection sites allow users to take illicit drugs under 
the care of health professionals.

In September 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Insite, a 
supervised injection site in Vancouver, could continue to operate 
legally. While the health centre has learned a lot from Insite, 
McCarthy says they wanted a broader portrayal of supervised injection sites.

While the staff took the trip to gather information, McCarthy says, 
the centre does not have an official stance on the sites.

"We were specifically looking at safe consumption sites as one 
strategy in a range of harm reduction programs," McCarthy says.

"That's what we really focused on. How did they work, and how was the 
community engaged before they were set up?"

The employees found that the sites in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and 
Utrecht, in the Netherlands, and Frankfurt, Germany, moved drug users 
out of public spaces and into medical facilities. These cities saw 
crime rates and disease transmission decrease. Public support for the 
sites increased over time, McCarthy says.

McCarthy says the health centre hopes to promote discussion about 
sites in Ottawa.

"Everyone wants to live in a safe community, for sure," he says. "But 
then how do we reach out to (drug users), often with mental health 
and addiction issues, and create the right kind of approaches that 
minimize the harm to the community and minimized the harm to them and 
to others, and that's what we've tried to do here."

The Centretown Community Health Centre is also gathering information 
on supervised injection sites, says executive director Simone 
Thibault. With high intravenous transmission rates of HIV and 
Hepatitis C among drug users, she says the community must be more 
involved in these talks.

"We all need to be better informed and educated," she says.

Despite these centre's efforts to promote discussion for supervised 
injection sites, there is still staunch opposition to them from city 
officials and community organizers.

The Ottawa Police Service is "dead against" them, says Insp. Chris 
Rheaume, because they will make it more difficult to arrest drug 
offenders. Instead, Rheaume says communities should focus on teaching 
children about drugs in a more effective way.

"Every dollar that we, and I'm going to use the word 'waste,' on a 
supervised injection site could be a dollar that we could be putting 
toward educating the public."
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