Pubdate: Sat, 17 Dec 2011
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html
Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Aaron Derfel, The Gazette 

SAFE INJECTION SITE PLAN IS SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND: HEALTH OFFICIAL

Despite Ottawa's Opposition, Strategy Reduces Ods, Infections, Doctors Agree

Are they legalized shooting galleries or harm-reduction centres?

A report released Friday by the Montreal public health department 
recommends that three supervised injection sites and a mobile one be 
established next year in city neighbourhoods where intravenous drug 
use is rampant.

Dr. Richard Lessard, director of public health, suggested that fixed 
sites be set up in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, downtown and an area near 
St. Urbain and Prince Arthur Sts. The mobile unit would move around 
St. Henri and the city's southwest sector.

"We are convinced - and all the scientific studies back us up on this 
point - that supervised injection sites do not create new problems," 
Lessard told The Gazette. "On the contrary, they reduce the problem of 
syringes found on the streets and in the parks, and they reduce the 
number of overdose deaths."

The federal Conservative government has taken a "tough on crime" 
position against supervised injection sites. Federal cabinet minister 
Tony Clement, when he oversaw the health portfolio, lectured doctors 
at their annual convention in 2008 on the evils of safe injection 
sites, saying they violate the medical code of ethics.

Most physicians, however, support safe injection sites as places where 
addicts can take heroin and other drugs without running the risk of 
contracting HIV and the hepatitis C virus, and potentially spreading 
the viruses to others. Drug users are often referred by nurses and 
doctors for psychological counselling and medical appointments that 
would be inaccessible to them on the streets. Some drug users have 
found affordable housing through such sites, and many are vaccinated 
against hepatitis C.

Safe injection sites steer almost one in three IV addicts toward drug 
rehab programs.

"Safe injection sites work very well," said Dr. Pierre Cote, director 
of the HIV/ drug-addition unit at the Center hospitalier de 
l'universite de Montreal.

"They are known to reduce the number of hospitalizations that arise 
from drug users using dirty needles and they reduce the number of 
deaths by overdose."

A study published in The Lancet medical journal in April observed that 
illicit drug overdose deaths in Vancouver's downtown eastside 
plummeted by 35 per cent after the establishment of InSite, North 
America's first supervised injection facility.

The Harper government had tried to indirectly close InSite by letting 
its exemption from federal drug laws lapse. But in September, the 
Supreme Court ordered the federal minister of health to grant an 
immediate exemption to allow InSite to continue running. In Montreal, 
North America's first safeneedle exchange opened in 1989. Cactus 
Montreal is still around, but it only provides clean needles. At a 
supervised injection site, to be located in either a health 
establishment or a community centre, a health professional will ask 
the addict a series of questions and supervise the drugtaking, Lessard 
explained.

The voluminous study by the public health department noted that IV 
drug-use deaths have jumped from an average of 50 a year in Montreal 
in the first half of the last decade to 72 in 2009, the last year for 
which complete figures are available. The NIMBY syndrome - Not In My 
Back Yard - is always an issue with safe injection sites. Lessard said 
he sympathizes with community groups and has met with concerned citizens.

"What we've explained to these groups is that studies have shown that 
in cities where there are such sites, there has been no increase in 
the activity," he said. "In proposing three fixed sites and a mobile 
one, we want to reach the people where they are rather than attracting 
them to a particular area."
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.