Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jul 2016
Source: Surrey Leader (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Surrey Leader
Contact:  http://www.surreyleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1236
Author: Kevin Diakiw
Cited: VANDU: http://www.vandu.org/

DRUG GROUP SETS UP SAFE INJECTION SITE IN WHALLEY

A makeshift safe injection site has been set up in North Surrey, 
raising the ire of local organizations that are trying to create a 
permanent facility in Surrey.

On Wednesday, a volunteer with a Vancouver support group for drug 
users set up a table on 135A Street to give people a safe place to 
inject their drugs.

Ann Livingston, a longtime volunteer with the Vancouver Area Network 
of Drug Users (VANDU), said she was motivated to bring the safe 
injection site to Surrey for several reasons.

The first is the fact Surrey experienced 43 overdoses over one 
weekend earlier this month.

Adding to the risk is July 27 is welfare cheque day for many people. 
Drug use, Livingston noted, usually spikes around those days.

Livingston said the creation of the safe injection site also served 
to further the conversation around need.

"It's a matter of pushing, I think, to make people see that it's not 
a complicated thing," Livingston told The Leader Wednesday.

She said Surrey RCMP and city bylaw officers had come by "two or 
three times" by noon on Wednesday, and no one had asked her to take 
it down as of that time.

"They were all here when we came," Livingston said.

Ron Moloughney, president of the Surrey Area Network of Substance 
Users (SANSU), is not pleased with the VANDU approach.

SANSU, which as 286 local members, has been working with the city and 
the Fraser Health Authority to locate a safe injection site in Surrey.

VANDU's impromptu pop-up site could serve as a setback to those 
discussions, he said.

"I'd like to see a safe injection site, but not the way they're doing 
it, that's just bulldogging," Moloughney said, adding he expects they 
would be shut down by 3 p.m.

Livingston said everyone she's met was very friendly to the project 
and she had no closure time in mind.

The pop-up safe injection site comes on the heels of a call by Fraser 
Health to create "safe consumption sites" in the region.

That call came right after the health authority reported there were 
43 drug overdoses over the weekend of July 16 and 17.

Until now, Surrey has strenuously argued against the idea of safe 
injection sites in the city.

Mayor Linda Hepner has recently softened her position somewhat, 
telling The Leader on July 19 that it was time to look at safe 
consumption sites.

Unlike Vancouver, she said, it would be part of another structure, 
not a stand-alone facility.

"Is there a space within the vulnerable population, say a shelter, 
where we could have what I would call a 'safe consumption site?' " 
Hepner asked, adding it would include those who are injecting drugs.

"Some element of safety and consumption has got to happen, or we're 
going to see a lot of... I mean, we are lucky there are no deaths so 
far," Hepner said.

Moloughney warned the pop-up site could frustrate discussions with 
Fraser Health.

"We're in the midst of negotiations and trying to figure out how to 
best address the problem," Moloughney said. "They're coming down here 
and just doing it and the way they're doing it is not safe."

He said clients need privacy and also require the attendance of a 
nurse and doctor in a sterile environment, which is not what is 
occurring in Whalley.

"We don't approve of it at all," Moloughney said. "They just show up 
and say they want to do an injection site. That's wrong."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom