Despite an uncertain future for Vancouver’s supervised drug injection site, plans are underway to determine if a similar facility would be suitable for Ottawa.
Sixteen people participated in two separate focus groups this summer co-ordinated by the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto to help researchers decide if the drug problem in Ottawa warrants a medically supervised clinic where addicts can use illegal drugs.
Catharine Vandelinde, co-ordinator of harm reduction programs at the Somerset West Community Health Centre, says the groups of eight consisted of drug users and community members.
She says while the centre has not yet taken a position on the possibility of a safe site, it is waiting in anticipation for the results.
“We are as anxious as everyone else to see what the outcome of the research is,” Vandelinde says.
The drug problems in Vancouver and Ottawa are different she says, but the research is aimed to determine if a facility will work here.
“Is it feasible? Is there support? Is there political will and would drug users use it?”
Eric Darwin, president of the Dalhousie Community Association, is opposed to the idea of a supervised injection site in the city.
He says the addition of this kind of facility will encourage drug addiction.
“This doesn’t strike me as a treatment, so much as an enabling that allows someone to continue to be addicted,” he says.
Darwin who participated in the focus group adds that a supervised injection site may have been the solution in Vancouver, but Ottawa’s problem is unique.
He says that in Vancouver where many addicts shoot up drugs outdoors, in Ottawa there appears to be more of an indoor phenomenon because the streets are not littered with syringes and crack pipes. Darwin says the issue in Ottawa is that more drug users are contracting HIV and AIDS.
Although not completely against the idea, he says his resistance stems from his concern for its impact on his community – an opinion he feels many in Centretown will share.
“A major concern of mine is that it will cause people to say, that’s a druggie neighbourhood and it will cause people with children to move out and then your school system starts to decline,” Darwin says.
Still, he acknowledges there may be some benefits of having a facility similar to Vancouver's in the city if it can help addicts overcome their addictions.
“If this gets them the first step into a drug treatment program then it is good,” he says. It becomes like a recruiting agent – outreach that gets a contact with those people.”
Darwin says it appears highly unlikely that a facility will become a reality with a federal government that is working to shut down the facility in Vancouver where a major problem exists.
“In Ottawa where there isn’t a major problem, it would be a very hard sell to get this up and running.”
Timothy Campbell, a Gladstone Avenue resident, says while he can see a benefit to a supervised injection site, he would not want it in his neighbourhood because it is a residential area.
“It’s close to a business area but it’s also the borderline of where people are living and I’d really not rather a safe injection site here,” Campbell says. He says he would prefer a location away from residential homes.