Despite the Drawbacks, It's Harm Reduction: Safe Injection Sites for Addicts Are the Way to Go

"Sometimes solutions are almost as harrowing as the problems they're designed to fix. Considering economic restructuring, or side effects from medicines that save life. To these, we add safe injection sites. Research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal looked at such facilities in other countries with an eye to how they could alleviate drug-use problems in Vancouver. Researchers catalogued the health risks taken by 776 injection drug users over six months. Nearly 28 percent of these people shared needles, known to transmit disease. Almost 75 percent reported injecting alone, a practice that carries a high risk of death from overdose.

"Harm reduction, experts tell us, invariably includes providing safe, clean places where addicts can go to inject their drugs with sterile needles. . . . The facilities would also provide a point of contact for those who want to access social services and, ideally, rehabilitation. As things now stand, too many addicts inject in the alleyways of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They're foul outdoor shooting galleries, infested with rats and tainted with garbage, excrement and urine. Some 90 percent of people in the research have already contracted hepatitis C, and nearly 40 percent are HIV positive, says Dr. Martin Schechter, a lead co-author of both studies.

"As repugnant as we find drug addiction, we have a moral and practical responsibility to help addicts avoid further harm to themselves and others. As the CMAJ suggests, by setting up safe injection sites, 'we can make the lives of people with drug addictions a little better and neighborhoods a little safer.' . . . To be sure, safe injection sites are bitter medicine. As part of a comprehensive plan, they're also necessary medicine."

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