Pubdate: Fri, 08 Feb 2013
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Mike Howell

HEALTH CHIEF SUPPORTS SAFE CRACK ROOM IN CITY

Facility would need to be for scientific purposes

The chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health says she
supports opening a designated space in the city for people to legally
smoke crack cocaine.

But Dr. Patricia Daly said she would only support such a facility if
it were opened solely for the purposes of a scientific study to
examine its effect on crack smokers.

"We're not saying let's open it now," Daly told the Courier. "We're
saying if you're going to do it, you need to do it in the context of a
research study."

That approach, she said, was taken with the Insite supervised drug
injection site on East Hastings, which opened in September 2003 as a
three-year scientific experiment.

Several studies done by various researchers showed Insite reduced
needle sharing and the spread of infectious diseases and hooked up
users with treatment and housing.

Vancouver Coastal Health operates Insite in conjunction with the PHS
Community Services Society. Both operators have said no one has died
of an overdose at Insite, despite an average of 600 injections per
day.

The 12-booth injection facility, the only legal injection site in
North America, has remained open past the expiration date of the study
because of numerous successful court challenges by advocates of Insite.

The facility was originally designed with a space for an inhalation
room for crack cocaine smokers. The PHS, the Vancouver Area Network of
Drug Users and Larry Campbell, when he was mayor from 2002 to 2005,
lobbied to have a crack smoking room in Insite.

Despite Daly's interest in such a facility, she said the health agency
has not applied to the federal government to get the necessary
exemption to conduct a study. Nor has the agency advertised for a
research group to conduct a study. The health authority is reviewing
an evaluation of a program it launched in December 2011 where 150,000
crack cocaine smoking kits were distributed largely in the Downtown
Eastside.

So far, Daly said, the draft report shows evidence of less sharing of
crack smoking supplies and a reduction in burns and cuts.

Dr. Thomas Kerr, the director of the urban health research initiative
at the B.C. for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, commended the health agency
for the program.

But, Kerr said, there's more work to do in a city that has seen a
substantial increase in the number of people smoking crack cocaine.

"Anyone who has spent any serious amount of time in the Downtown
Eastside notices a significant difference in the use of drugs in
public spaces," he said, referring to the number of drug users who use
Insite. "So while there used to be people injecting all up and down
the alleys and in the streets, you don't see that really anymore to
the same extent at all. But what you do see is a lot of people smoking
crack."

Kerr said the B.C. Centre would be interested in conducting a
scientific study on users of a legal crack smoking room but the
research group needs to first have Vancouver Coastal Health get an
exemption and provide the space.

"We would certainly do that but it's not our position to initiate the
program," he said. "That's, in a way, the role of the health authority
and it's something we'd have to do in partnership with them."
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MAP posted-by: Matt