NEIGHBOURS HELP ONE ANOTHER

Too sick to shoot up? Call a volunteer (Canadian Press, September 1st, 2005)

Addicts, crippled and blinded by their drug use and too sick to shoot themselves up, will be helped by a volunteer team of users to get high safely.

Forty members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users will be patrolling the Downtown Eastside, a slum and open drug market that teems with disease, offering injection education and assistance.

“Most of the stats show people who are incapable of injecting themselves or have a hard time have the highest rate of HIV,” said Diane Tobin, the new and first female president of the users' harm reduction group.

VANDU, which is wholly run by volunteers, has 12 members trained and walking the alleys now. Ms. Tobin said they hope to get a room where people can also come to them.

“There's a huge need out there,” said Ms. Tobin, who is back on heroin to deal with withdrawal from methadone.[...]

Health Canada is calling for a change to the law that prevents peers and nurses in the city's sanctioned safe injection site from helping people inject.

But lighting their cigarettes for them will be a felony..