Pubdate: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 Source: Business Edge (Canada) Copyright: 2005 Business Edge Contact: http://www.businessedge.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3917 Author: Monte Stewart, Business Edge Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Safe Injecting Rooms) BUSINESS GROUPS SUPPORT SAFE-INJECTION SITE Join Advocates Seeking To Keep Facility Open Business groups say that Vancouver's safe-injection site should remain open until long-term solutions are found to help drug addicts kick their habits. They are joining the ranks of AIDS doctors and researchers, social agencies, drug addicts and their families in calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to prevent the three-year-old clinic's closure. Located in a section of Chinatown within the poverty-plagued Downtown East Side (DES), the facility allows addicts to shoot up legally inside its walls, but a Health Canada exemption of a section of the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act is due to expire on Sept. 12. "As it stands now, SIS (the safe injection site) is more beneficial than detrimental," says Albert Fok, chairman of the Chinatown Merchants Association, who has sent a letter to Harper. "It's been beneficial to the community and beneficial to businesses." Supporters and several studies say the clinic, the only one of its kind in North America, has prevented addicts' deaths, limited the spread of dirty needles that cause AIDS/HIV, and reduced vandalism and break-ins in the area already notorious for drug addiction, prostitution and crime. "I would cautiously support it, due to the fact for the past two and a half years we have had a decline of users shooting up in a back alley or in front of (the former) Woodward's department store or something like that," says Fok. Fok adds SIS has made people more comfortable walking around Chinatown and could help attract more customers to the historic area, which has seen an erosion of business in recent years. In addition to social problems on the DES, Vancouver's Chinatown has had to contend with the growth of other Chinatowns in suburbs such as Richmond. But Fok adds funds must be found to help SIS users end their addictions. "Helping them has created good optics on one hand, but costs money on the other hand." The Chinatown Merchants Association consists primarily of 200 business operators and property owners. Fok says his group has enhanced security in recent years and is working with other groups, such as the Chinatown and Gastown business improvement associations, to promote the area. The president of the Chinatown Business Improvement Association (CBIA) is also calling for SIS to remain open. "If they close the safe-injection site, (the problem) comes back to our back lane," says CBIA president Tony Lam. Lam, who operates a small appliance store, said the clinic has resulted in "at least an 80- per-cent cleanup" of lanes. SIS doesn't help Chinatown business-wise, he adds, but it's better than pushing addicts on to the street. "Let them have a safe and clean place," says Lam. Before he was elected last year, Harper indicated he would close SIS, but has faced increasing pressure from health and community groups in the rest of Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia to keep the site open. Local supporters of SIS also include Mayor Sam Sullivan and former mayors Larry Campbell, now a federal senator, and Philip Owen, who spearheaded the creation of SIS and subsequently lost the support of his Non-Partisan Association party. According to the peer-reviewed studies on the site, drug users complete an average of 600 injections per day at SIS, staff have treated 453 overdoses with no fatalities, more than 4,000 referrals were made to counselling and other support services, and addicts who inject there are more likely to seek detoxification. The facility has also reduced the number of syringes discarded on the street and curbed needle sharing, which puts a user at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C. The Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) wants SIS to remain open, but believes the site is a short-term solution. "Go with the SIS until there's something better around," says Dave Jones, the DVBIA's director of crime prevention services. "The SIS saves lives, but it's not the answer." DVBIA members operate outside the DES, but addicts still commit theft in the downtown core to support their habits. But Jones says keeping SIS open will do "nothing" positive for businesses. "The people who are frequenting the SIS are not getting better," says Jones. "(And) they're coming into our community to commit these crimes." Jones, a former Vancouver police officer who served as the downtown district's commander for eight years, says a percentage of Vancouver's population has been addicted to drugs since opium smokers were first reported in the city during its startup days in the 1800s. But support agencies are hampered by a lack of detoxification, addiction and mental health facilities and affordable housing. "Putting it very simply, SIS is a gateway to a corral where people could get help," says Jones. "The corral hasn't been built yet." He notes there is sufficient government money available, but nobody has yet examined the "social services industry," in which several groups provide overlapping services, to re-align it in "a functional way." The Gastown Business Improvement Association, which previously criticized the startup of SIS, is not commenting on whether it should close or remain open. "We don't have enough information on it to have a position," says Leanore Sali, the association's executive director. Since SIS launched in 2003, its nurses and other staff have supervised a quarter of a million injections, says Mark Townsend of the Portland Hotel Society (PHS), which operates the site. If the injections had not occurred there, they would have taken place in shop doorways, alleys or other locations on commercial properties, he adds. "The main benefit is people haven't died," says Townsend. The site has also helped to reduce "pathetic, annoying" property crimes committed by addicts at neighbourhood businesses, he adds. The PHS plans to keep the site going even if Harper does not extend the deadline. "Ultimately, (keeping SIS open) is a no-brainer," says Townsend, who calls the federal government's drug policy a "big mistake." Harper was criticized for not attending the recent international AIDS conference in Toronto. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, whose foundation recently donated $500 million for HIV/AIDS research, were among the guest speakers. Although Harper holds the final say over the site's future, Ottawa does not contribute any funds to the facility, says SIS organizer Nathan Allen. The clinic has secured funds from the province and the city to stay open for another three years, but those dollars would dry up if the federal exemption is terminated. "I know there are people who would be donating money, that sort of thing, but none of that's for sure," says Allen. Harper has been delaying his decision on SIS until the completion of an RCMP-commissioned study by criminologist Irwin Cohen of the University College of the Fraser Valley. The recently released RCMP study says the site hasn't increased crime in the area or attracted drug users from other areas of Greater Vancouver, which opponents feared it would do. Cohen studied 25 English peer-reviewed journal articles and UN-commissioned reports on injection sites in Australia, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands for his report, and then applied information to outcomes SIS has achieved so far. "I would say from a research perspective, not from a citizen's perspective, the experiment should continue," he said. - - with files from The Canadian Press - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom