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! - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake