Injection Drug Use

Higher than expected incidence of HIV found in injecting drug users in London

AIDSmap

A higher than expected incidence of HIV infections, and a high incidence of hepatitis C virus infections has been found amongst injecting drug users in London, according to a study published in the November 13th online edition of the British Medical Journal.

Compared to some other European countries the United Kingdom has a low prevalence of both HIV and hepatitis C virus amongst injecting drug users. This is attributed to the harm reduction measures introduced in the late 1980s, including the widespread introduction of needle exchange.

Investigators wished to determine the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C virus amongst new injecting drug users in London.

In 2001, a total of 428 injecting drug users under 30 years of age who had been injecting drugs for less than six years, were recruited from community settings in London and Brighton. Samples were provided for baseline HIV and hepatitis C virus testing and individuals provided demographic details and information about their injecting behaviour and risk activity to researchers. Follow-up was provided for a year.

Vancouver's Drug Experiment Winning Converts

Vancouver's Drug Experiment Winning Converts

Kamloops, Victoria and other cities are getting serious about safe injection sites. Top salesmen: Vancouver mayors Owen and Campbell.

TheTyee.ca

[First of a two part series]

Fighting drug addiction, it seems, is addictive. A year after opening North America’s first safe injection site for heroin users, Vancouver is expanding hours, arranging prescription heroin trials, and hoping to add a safe inhalation room for crack users. Not only are Montreal and Toronto looking at opening their own safe injection sites, but so are smaller cities, most notably Kamloops and even tourist-quaint Victoria.

Link: Media coverage of safe injection site for Victoria

Cop's Report States How Much Drug Users Spend

By charlie smith
Georgia Straight

Publish Date: 14-Oct-2004

Two-thirds of heroin and cocaine users in a Downtown Eastside survey have admitted to spending at least $50 per day on illicit drugs. Almost half admitted they spend $100 or more per day, according to the study conducted by two SFU students.

Over an eight-day period in January 2003, SFU students Gareth Bradley and Jennifer Parks were accompanied by Vancouver police Const. Gerry Wickstead as they surveyed 100 people using cocaine or heroin in alleys. According to a 224-page report written by Wickstead, the officer identified himself and told respondents that they wouldn't be charged and their drugs wouldn't be confiscated.

"One of the respondents told us how he recently spent his entire insurance settlement of $30,000 on drugs," Wickstead wrote in the report Treadmill of Addiction. "He came from Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood and rented a room on the Hastings strip for one big month-long drug binge. Once the street people heard of his new found wealth he quickly acquired an abundance of friends."

From pot at age nine to coke at 17

See also other stories and links about: Crystal Meth

MARISSA NELSON, Free Press reporter
London Free Press

By age nine she had tried pot. By 10 it was LSD. By 17 she'd graduated to cocaine. The Londoner's drug use was a gradual progression, with the substance of choice dictated by the crowd she ran with.

"Drugs were easy to get," Amanda says, shrugging. "I could escape my reality."

In the beginning, the coke crowd was alluring.

To a girl who grew up in a low-income family in a small community north of London, the cocaine users -- with their stacks of cash and guns -- gave a sense of power.

"At first it was exciting to me, then it became just about the drugs," she says.

It doesn't matter what neighbourhood they come from, how much money their family has or their grades in school -- whether parents like it or not, most teens try drugs.

Safe-injection report allays critics' fears

See also: Neighbourhood improved by safe injection site: report

Supporters of bringing a supervised injection site to downtown Victoria received a shot in the arm last week from the release of a report praising a supervised injection site pilot project in Vancouver.

"I think this is just the tip of the good news iceberg," said Richard Stanwick, chief medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

"There was a concern that the initial good results worldwide could be successful in a North American setting. But I believe that concern has been put to rest by the report and (the facility's) success."

While data are still being gathered on the Vancouver site's success in getting intravenous drug addicts into treatment - two to four users a day were referred to treatment - the report offered strong evidence the facility, called Insite, saved lives in its first six months of existence.

Neighbourhood improved by safe injection site: report
WebPosted Sep 27 2004 03:53 PM PDT

CBC

VANCOUVER - Vancouver's supervised drug injection site is making the Downtown Eastside a better place to live, says a new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The researchers say they found an improvement in public order in the area since the safe injection site was opened more than a year ago.

"This is a major question around safe injection facilities," says spokesperson Thomas Kerr. "Many people were concerned they would actually increase public disorder."

Kerr says the improvement is likely due to the high number of people injecting themselves inside the facility rather than outside on the streets of the hard-pressed neighbourhood.

The researchers say they also found far fewer discarded syringes and wrappers within 10 blocks of the site.

Report on first Year of Supervised Injection site in Vancouver

Evaluation of the Supervised Injection Site

North America's first government sanctioned Supervised Injection Facility (SIF) was opened in Vancouver on September 22, 2003. The Federal government approval for the three-year pilot study was granted on the condition that the health and social impacts of Insite undergo a
rigorous external scientific evaluation.

The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is coordinating the evaluation component and is responsible for measuring the impact of the SIF. A
more detailed review of the evaluation methods will be published in the Harm Reduction Journal in September 2004.

Please use this link for the full report: href="http://www.vch.ca/sis/Docs/esis_year_one_sept16_042.pdf">Evaluation of the Supervised Injection Site

Safe injection site a success, says top health official

WebPosted Sep 21 2004 10:02 AM PDT

CBC

VANCOUVER - The head of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority says the city's safe injection site is working better than expected.

The authority's CEO, Ida Goodreau, says more drug users than expected are visiting the site – and many are being directed to treatment aimed at weaning them off heroin.

"Two to four referrals per day to other types of treatment," she says. "And that might be counselling, it might be addictions treatment, it might be medical care."

A report on the site's first year of operation will be released on Thursday. But Goodreau previewed the findings at a conference on drug addiction in Vancouver on Monday night.

The Vancouver clinic is part of a three-year, $3.7-million pilot project funded by Health Canada and the B.C. government.

Governor General visits the downtown eastside
September 21, 2004 - 6:41 am
By: Andrew Dawson

News1130

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will see a pair of special visitors today, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband John Ralston Saul.

They'll be taking a tour of the poorest neighbourhood in Canada with Mayor Larry Campbell. Clarkson will visit United We Can recycling and the Portland Dental Clinic. Both have been success stories in the downtown eastside.

The tour wraps up at the Inter-urban Art Gallery. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the Anti Poverty Committee hope to meet with Clarkson and her husband to show them the areas not on the tour, to give a different perspective.

First anniversary of safe injection site

WebPosted Sep 15 2004 09:22 AM PDT
CBC Vancouver

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority backgrounder

VANCOUVER - The society which provides frontline staff at Vancouver's safe injection site says the number of visits to the Downtown Eastside clinic has quadrupled to 840 a day since it opened its doors a year ago.

Portland Hotel Society spokesperson Mark Townsend says the fact that drug users are going to the clinic is making the community safer.

"The people using it are reducing pressure on the streets, and also they are minimizing the spread of infectious diseases," he says.

"And they are less likely, from the preliminary data, to be sharing needles or equipment."

LINK: FAQs about safe injection site (pdf)