B.C. safe-injection site applies to Health Canada for exemption to drug laws

VANCOUVER – The operators of a Vancouver health centre that has run a safe-injection site for 12 years without an exemption to drug laws want the federal government to let them continue operations legally.

The Dr. Peter Centre provides services to people with HIV and AIDS, and the services include a supervised injection site and a needle exchange.

Vancouver’s chief medical health officer Dr. Patricia Daly says the centre applied for an exemption in 2003 and believed it was granted, but learned a few years later that the paperwork wasn’t fully processed.

She says the facility has been operating without an exemption to drug laws ever since.

Vancouver Coastal Health, and the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, which operates the centre, have now applied to Health Canada for an exemption to federal drug laws.

Daly says research has shown the city’s first legal safe-injection site, Insite, has saved lives and reduced the risk of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.