Pubdate: Fri, 19 Oct 2007
Source: Republic, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Republic
Contact:  http://republic-news.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3518
Author: Tavis W Dodds
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/InSite
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/downtown+eastside

INSIDE INSITE

The Author Pays a Visit to Vancouver's Supervised Safe Injection Site 
in Search of a Fresh Perception of This Misunderstood Issue

There are some strong opinions out there about Insite, Canada's only 
supervised site for substance abuse victims to inject themselves with 
illegal narcotics. On the previous weekend, I'd attended a huge block 
party rally for Insite on Carrall Street that shut down traffic for 
hours with live bands, stilt walkers and a free BBQ.

The enforcement pillar of the drug industry, the police departments, 
lobbies the governments to shut down the facility. The whole project 
has survived on six month exemptions to Canada's drug laws, leaving 
staff and clients not knowing how long the site will last. 
Vancouver's Mayor Sam Sullivan makes statements on both sides of this 
fence and has even stated that Insite might make the transition to 
distributing drugs.

I decided to see for myself what Insite is like from the clients' 
point of view. So on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I headed down 
Hastings Street from Main and entered Insite's frosted door bedecked 
with stylized needle logo and window, all set about with dark green trim.

Sickened people sway back and forth, leaning on shopping carts. It 
smells like industrial cleaner. The room inside the door is like a 
coat check room for shopping carts-all the worldly possessions of 
perhaps a dozen people. A man at a desk asks my name. "Ever been here 
before?" he asks. "No," I say.

A lady with a clipboard is assigned to give me an orientation. She 
makes it very clear that nothing must exchange hands in the building. 
Also, no one can help me inject drugs into myself. They give me a 
syringe, alcohol swabs, a little metal bowl, and water in tiny blue 
plastic containers.

The next room is like collaboration between William S Burroughs and H 
R Geiger. Seats face into stainless steel cubicles built out of the 
mirrored wall. It's very bright. A lady at the end spurts blood out 
of her arm all over her cubicle. There is a big man there whose job 
it is to watch the injection room, and he wipes up the blood and 
gives the lady a band-aid.

The glare is so strong it makes you blink at your reflection, which 
distorts as the drugs take effect or wear off or not work. Research 
in the downtown eastside shows cocaine use to be as low as 10% and 
the rest of the drug use to be amphetamine or other chemicals that 
produce a rush similar to inhalants. The people doing this sort of 
drug twitch and fiddle with their needles. They are in agony. Once 
one has been trapped into slavery to this drug there is often nothing 
left but an all-consuming need for more. These addicts clearly hate 
the substances they crave. The spastic fidgeting makes them look like 
poisoned bugs.

Two chairs over from me is an old man, presentably dressed. He's on 
heroin, the other drug. He nods slowly, slouching down in the relief 
of fixing. Heroin hurts when you don't have it, but now that the old 
man has had it he seems almost okay. His eyes roll up slightly and he 
says something about not being allowed to shake hands.

We are ushered out into the next room, a "chill out room." A man 
behind a counter hands out styrofoam cups of what looks like soup. On 
the street outside the green door a police car pulls up next to a 
cluster of people sheltering from the rain. The police squawk their 
siren and the crowd quickly disperse. Around the corner, in Blood 
Alley, people sprawl out in the muck. A woman fills her syringe from 
a puddle. Others sift through the sludgy buildup everywhere in hopes 
of finding lost drugs. One woman is particularly spastic, and a tall 
Jamaican man walking past says to her, "You have to slow down!

You're going to kill yourself if you don't slow down. Or go to Insite!"

"Go to Insite!" echoes someone else. It's impossible to tell if the 
woman hears them.

In the National Post story "Four Blocks of Hell," and in nearly all 
the coverage of downtown eastside drug epidemics, the dealers are 
said to be plying their wares in plain sight, but this is not the 
reality. It is true that you can see drugs being sold, but this is an 
industry where the retail level customers serve themselves and the 
real dealers drive Mercedes. The drug industries, both the illicit 
one and big pharmaceutical businesses, are trillion-dollar 
industries. We are meant to believe that an industry this size can be 
conducted by bike gangs and a few dirty businessmen.

There is a macroeconomic level to this phenomenon and at this level 
all industries are inextricably linked, from tourism to energy to 
security. How many degrees away are the real dealers from our elected 
officials? Both Vancouver and British Columbia have been purchasing 
rooming houses at way over the assessed value and thereby 
contributing to real estate hysteria, while giving millions of tax 
dollars to several companies known to be associated with narcotics 
distribution.

Crystal meth labs are found in $10 million homes in Jericho Beach. 
Look to the Four Seasons Hotel for the real dealers, who are there to 
listen to MLA Lorne Mayencourt present his plan to build forced 
labour camps for substance abuse victims to detox them in rural 
environments. The higher we go, the closer to reality we seem to get, 
until it starts making more sense to believe what the police 
originally said when they raided the BC Legislature Building, that 
they were investigating a drug-trafficking ring. Police later said 
that they covered up information because it "made the government look 
bad." We'd be better to look for truth not in the Basi-Virk trial 
that has resulted from the unprecedented legislative office raid, but 
perhaps in the National Film Board production "Citizen Sam", in which 
Mayor Sam Sullivan defends having bought crack for a kid to smoke in 
his van so he, as a concerned leader, could watch the effects.

"Give out free drugs," Sam jokes in the film, "that's how to get the 
homeless vote." Is this reality? Is the state and financial powers 
conspiring to suck profits out of a plague whose victims litter the 
streets? If this is the case, then what can anyone do beyond damage 
control, or harm reduction? God damn the pusher man! 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake