Pubdate: Fri, 20 Apr 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: Rene Bruemmer

EXPERTS URGE SAFE-INJECTION DRUG SITE FOR MONTREAL

Point To Vancouver As Proof Such Clinics Reduce HIV Overdoses And
Injury

Fear is the only thing keeping downtown Montreal from having a
supervised injection site (SIS) for drug users, health care and drug
dependency experts from across Canada said Thursday.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in September that Vancouver's
Insite centre could not be closed because it would jeopardize the
health and lives of its users. In December, Montreal's public health
department released a report calling for the creation of three
supervised injection sites and one mobile unit.

Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc has said he supports the creation
of sites. In early April, researchers at the University of Toronto
recommended two such sites be created in Ottawa, and another three in
Toronto.

Yet seven months after the Supreme Court decision, Montreal is still
without an SIS, and a large part of the reason is based on the
public's fear of drug addicts, experts said at the forum, titled
Integrating Supervised Injection Services into Health Care and
Community. It was part of the 21st annual Canadian Conference on
HIV/AIDS Research going on this week.

"The experience in Vancouver shows us clearly the difficulties they
lived in trying to open - we are living the same difficulties here in
Montreal," said Louis Letellier de St. Just, a founding member of the
Cactus needle-exchange program in downtown Montreal that is lobbying
to become an SIS. "We need to focus on the fear felt by citizens - we
must do it and again and again."

Mayor Gerald Tremblay has said any site must be located in an existing
medical facility outside of the downtown core because residents have
demanded it. But studies have shown drug users do not go to hospitals
or clinics. "Drug users are not a clientele that we (as a society)
like to serve or receive," Letellier de St. Just noted. Last week, the
mayors and chiefs of police of Ottawa and Toronto rejected
recommendations for sites in their cities.

Those barriers are the reason the Insite program was set up outside of
a hospital in the heart of Vancouver's drug-besieged Downtown
Eastside. Contrary to popular belief, crime rates and drug use did not
increase, and the site did not attract users from all over the
province, as Montreal residents fear it will, organizers said. But the
rate of HIV transmission from shared needles, overdoses and public
injury did decrease.

"I just think it's a lack of education, of understanding on the part
of the populace," said Liz Evans, founder of the Portland Hotel
Society that supports people in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. "It's
not ill-intentioned. People just can't see it working." It doesn't
help that many don't see drug users as human beings, she noted.

The only thing preventing Cactus from becoming an SIS is a formal
approval from the Quebec Health Department, which could be hard to
achieve without the support of the mayor. Given that any future SIS
would likely be dependent on funding from the government, Cactus is
hesitant to open without formal approval. But that idea is being
debated, Letellier St. Just noted. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D