Mayor Pushes Substitute Drug Program - Vancouver

Vancouver will be able to close down its supervised-injection site for drug users once a new program for providing substitute legal drugs gets going, according to Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan.

Sullivan said that's the argument he's been making to the federal Conservative government, in order to get their support for his ambitious drug-treatment plan, which involves giving substitute legal drugs in pill form to addicts, as well as support for keeping the injection site open for now.

"I would never see [the injection site] as a long-term solution," said Sullivan. "We know there's 90-per-cent Hep C and 30-per-cent HIV among injection drug users. The reality is needles are not a good way to take drugs."

Sullivan's hope is that within 18 months a minimum of 1,000 people will be getting substitute drugs in five separate trials. Two of the trials will provide people with a new substitute for heroin; the other three will supply different kinds of drugs that are being proposed as substitutes for cocaine and crystal meth.

"I believe that 1,000 [people in these trials] will not make the supervised-injection site redundant, that it still has a very valuable service for society as we transition. It needs to be there as an essential recruitment site for [the substitution trials.] But I do believe it is a temporary measure."

Sullivan said the federal government may be willing to extend the necessary permits for the injection site, which are due to expire in December, because he's been able to convince them it's only a transitional tool that won't be necessary once more people are enrolled in the drug-substitution trials.Vancouver Sun