Pubdate: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc. Contact: http://www.montrealgazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Jesse Feith Page: A3 MONTREAL'S INJECTION SITES IN LIMBO Project for Supervised Facilities Was Approved After Local Consultations More than a year after Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre called for the urgent implementation of supervised drug injection sites, local advocates are stuck waiting for a project experts agree has life-or-death consequences. "We've been saying it and resaying it for many years now," said Martin Page, general director of Dopamine, a group based in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve that helps the homeless and addicted. "Supervised injection sites are a positive for everyone in the community." Not only would injection sites help prevent overdoses and other complications linked to drug use, Page said on Friday, but they would benefit the neighbourhood by reducing drug consumption in public spaces. "There are so many more positive effects than there are negative ones," Page said. "That's been proven in communities all around the world." In Montreal - after consultations with public safety authorities, the Montreal police department, and affected residents - a proposed project that would bring three supervised injection sites to the city was approved in 2013. So was a mobile clinic that would roam around Montreal. At a news conference last summer, Coderre said he wanted the sites implemented by that fall. "What are we waiting for?" the mayor asked at the time. "People are dying." Coderre said he wouldn't wait too long for Health Canada's approval, given a Supreme Court decision on the matter. In 2011, the top court ruled Vancouver's Insite centre - the first supervised injection site in Canada - was a necessary service, and closing it would jeopardize the health and lives of its users. In the summer of 2014, the most recent data available from the regional public health department, 233 people suffered drug overdoses in Montreal. Twenty-eight people died. Two years later, there still aren't any sites in Montreal, and the federal government has yet to give the project its approval. The city did not answer interview requests Friday. This week, British Columbia officials pressured Ottawa to make it easier for supervised drug injection sites to set up in cities that want them. The Globe and Mail reported B.C. officials sent Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott a letter urging her to repeal the Respect for Communities Act that was introduced by the former Conservative government. Many experts claim the legislation puts too many hurdles between injection sites and interested cities. Under the law, communities that want to open supervised drug injection sites must meet several requirements and consult with public health officials, community members, local police and provincial health ministers. Applicants must give information on crime rates near the proposed site, and hope for an exemption from Health Canada to be allowed to operate. "The law established criteria and conditions that are so restrictive when it comes to supervised injection sites that not only does it complicate the process, but locally, it slows it down enormously too," said Jean-Francois Mary, director general of the Association quebecoise pour la promotion de la sante des personnes utilisatrices de drogues. Though he's trying to stay confident, Mary said, fighting for more than a decade for a cause now stuck in bureaucratic limbo can be disheartening. "We don't even believe it anymore when we hear that they're going to be opened soon," Mary said. "The organizations that are supposed to host the sites don't even dare set opening dates anymore. We're stuck in a grey area where, every year for the last three years, we're told they'll be open in the spring. But it doesn't happen." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom