Advocates say Vancouver's harm reduction push has left out crack users

published on September 6, 2014 in Straight.com

DOWN THE HALL from the supervised injection room at Insite, there’s a mostly unused space that years ago was haphazardly filled with boxes.

Unique for a storage space, it’s outfitted to accommodate heavy air-handling units powerful enough to create negative room pressure.

Over coffee earlier this summer, Portland Hotel Society (PHS) cofounder and former executive director Mark Townsendexplained that Insite was originally planned to provide services to a variety of drug users. The room stuffed with boxes was designed as a place where people addicted to crack cocaine could smoke the drug in conditions that minimize risks of fatal overdose and infection, he said.

“We were working on it,” Townsend added. “We got a quote to set the room up, we got an architecture drawing ready for the tenant improvement for the space, we even had meetings about whether it would be captured in the nicotine smoking rules or not. But really getting it done, the big impediment was obviously the federal government.”

Travis Lupick
Straight.com
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© Copyright BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
St. Paul's Hospital 608–1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-8477 | Fax: 604-806-9044
General inquiries: info@bccfe.ca
Media inquiries: communications@bccfe.ca
(Please do not use any of these email addresses to send personal information or book an appointment. To book appointments or contact the H2H clinic, please call 604-416-1517 or fax: 604-564-4893. Do not send your or your client's personal information via email.)

Our work serves clients and communities across British Columbia on lands and waters cared for and nurtured by the many distinct First Nations across the province. The BC-CfE humbly and gratefully acknowledge the stewards of these lands, particularly the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) on whose unceded, traditional and ancestral territories our offices are located.