Pubdate: Fri, 10 Feb 2012
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html
Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: James Mennie

INJECTION SITE SHOULD BE IN VILLE MARIE: CACTUS

MONTREAL - The city of Montreal opposes the location, and area
residents are concerned it will add to the number of people seeking
help for addiction. But the man in charge of Cactus, which has run a
free needle exchange since 1989, says locating a supervised injection
site (SIS) at the Sanguinet St. community centre is a logical choice.

While Mayor Gerald Tremblay says any downtown SIS should be located in
an existing medical facility, Cactus president Louis Letellier de St.
Just notes that the final word rests with Quebec Health Minister Yves
Bolduc.

Letellier de St. Just believes that, in the end, the final word will
be "yes" to an SIS at Cactus.

"The minister committed himself publicly and privately as well,"
Letellier de St. Just told The Gazette on Thursday. "I'm not saying
that Minister Bolduc won't consider the weight (of the concerns
surrounding a downtown SIS) ... (but) it won't be the same weight for
him as it is for Mayor Tremblay. And, once again, the city has no
decisional power (on the project)."

On Tuesday evening, during a contentious meeting of the Ville Marie
borough council, Tremblay said any SIS in the area should be located
in existing medical facilities.

A coalition of local residents' groups calling for an SIS moratorium
attended the meeting - the first public forum to hear a debate on the
issue since the unveiling last December of a report by Montreal's
public health department proposing three SISs in the city.

The report - an effort to stem the number of overdose deaths and
spread of HIV and hepatitis C caused by shared or reused syringes -
also recommends that a mobile SIS be deployed where needed.

The residents' coalition in Ville Marie has called on provincial
health authorities to set up SISs in all regions of Quebec to reduce
the number of out-of-town addicts being referred to social service
centres in downtown Montreal.

But Letellier de St. Just says an SIS must be located where the
addicts are - and the addicts are in downtown Montreal.

"For the last 25 years, all we hear is fear, fear, fear, based on
nothing," he said. "Crime is going down in Ville Marie, and these are
numbers from the Montreal police department. We're not going to fly
people in from Honolulu to use our services. The people we're going
serve are the same ones we're serving now."

Cactus has prepared plans that would see its centre equipped with six
cubicles to provide as many as 100 nursesupervised injections a day.

Letellier de St. Just reminded Tremblay on Tuesday more than 90 per
cent of intravenous addicts do not use the mainstream medical system.

The debate over SIS in Montreal came to the fore after a Supreme Court
decision last September found that an attempt by the federal
government to shut down Vancouver's Insite clinic - North America's
only nurse-supervised injection site - violated the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.

The number of intravenous drug users in Montreal has been estimated
between 15,000-25,000.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt