Pubdate: Wed, 04 Nov 2015
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Susan Lazaruk
Page: 3

REPEAL BAN ON SAFE INJECTION SITES: MD

INSITE MODEL: Vancouver Coastal's chief medical health officer calls 
on feds to help save lives

Vancouver's top doctor is calling for the new federal Liberal 
government to scrap a law she said was designed to ban supervised 
heroin injection sites and to allow more sites to open across B.C.

Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer of the Vancouver 
Coastal Health Authority, said B.C. needs more sites like Insite, the 
first and only government-approved supervised injection site in North 
America, because evidence shows it helps save lives.

Daly said she's hopeful because the Liberals told B.C. health 
authorities in a pre-election survey they supported such sites as an 
"integral part of evidence-based" health care.

"I would like to see C-2 repealed," said Daly, referring to Bill C-2, 
the Respect for Communities Act passed earlier this year by the 
Conservative government.

The law required any proposed injection site to first assess the 
community's need for it, its impact on area crime rates and community 
support or opposition before seeking approval for a medical exemption 
that's necessary to operate because heroin is illegal.

Daly believes the law's sole purpose was to block new sites, which 
she said ideally would open within existing health facilities instead 
of as stand-alone clinics.

Even then, she said, it would take time to add new ones, she said.

Daly hopes Ottawa will quickly approve a medical exemption for the 
injection site at Vancouver's Dr. Peter Centre that's been operating 
without one since 2002.

The AIDS treatment centre in January 2014 applied to Health Canada 
for the exemption and is still awaiting a decision, an "unreasonable" 
amount of time, said executive director Maxine Davis.

A proposed Montreal injection site is also awaiting approval. Health 
Canada spokesman Sean Upton said in an email Tuesday he couldn't 
comment on any application.

Insite has been open since 2003, and Daly said injected drug use is decreasing.

A 2014 report by B.C. Coroners Service listed "illicit drug overdose 
deaths" at a five-year high at 103 deaths in Metro Vancouver in 2013, 
up from 78 in 2009. (There were 322 such deaths across B.C. in 2013.)

Daly said there has never been an overdose death at either Vancouver 
site and the number of using deaths around Insite has dropped.

She didn't know how many more sites are needed.

Ann Livingstone, a drug users advocate who lives in the Downtown 
Eastside, said she has noticed public drug injection increasing and 
said "we need at least four" because there are thousands of users and 
they shoot up three times a day.

Hugh Lampkin, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, 
said injection rooms within community health clinics and hospitals 
could increase usage and reduce deaths.

"People wouldn't feel stigmatized going into that building," Lampkin 
said. He speculated overdose deaths are of "closet users, weekend 
warriors, young kids who are trying to hide it. Some of them are 
ashamed (to use Insite)."

Spokeswoman Tasleem Juma said Fraser Health has no plans to open an 
injection site. Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne said his city doesn't need 
one because there isn't the "same kind of concentration of injection 
drug use" as in the DTES.

The Canadian Association of Police Chiefs opposes the sites and 
testified before a parliamentary committee this year that it "does 
not support the consumption of illegal drugs, no matter where it 
takes place," according to its website.

- - with files from Stephanie Ip
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom