Pubdate: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2008 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Ethan Baron Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/InSite CANADIANS WAFFLE ON SAFE INJECTION SITE: POLL Vancouver's safe-injection site, under attack by the federal health minister, has the support of 38 per cent of Canadians, a new poll suggests. The Angus Reid survey also found that 23 per cent of surveyed Canadians oppose Insite, which provides clean needles and a 12-seat room where people can inject heroin, cocaine and morphine under clinical supervision. Thirty-nine per cent of surveyed Canadians were undecided about Insite. Support for Insite was strongest among British Columbians and Albertans. Federal Health Minister Tony Clement recently trashed Insite in front of the Canadian Medical Association in Montreal and at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Clement said the facility saves just one life a year. "There are still 50 overdose deaths every year in the Downtown Eastside and Insite has had no impact on this rate of death," Clement said. But Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which documented 222 drug overdoses at Insite last year, said half of them involved full respiratory arrest and the victims were saved by facility staff. "If there wasn't an intervention in them, the person would die," said Anna Marie D'Angelo, spokeswoman for Vancouver Coastal. Insite costs $2.5 million a year to operate. Calling the facility "a surrender to a culture of disease and death," Clement said the money would be better spent on treating addiction. Vancouver Coastal contends that Insite refers hundreds of drug users every year to addiction counselling. Addicts who use the facility are more likely to enter detox programs, with one in five regular Insite visitors entering detox, according to the health authority. Twenty per cent of polled Canadians mistakenly believed the facility also hands out heroin, cocaine and morphine. In B.C., 53 per cent of respondents said they supported Insite strongly or moderately. Fifty-six per cent of Albertans took that view. Angus Reid, in questioning 1,005 Canadians from Aug. 15 to Aug. 18, broke the results down by education and income, and found that the strongest support for Insite came from people with household incomes of $100,000 or more, and from university graduates. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom