Researchers Show that Safe Injection Clinics like Insite Help Heroin Users Quit Injection Drug Use

Researchers from UBC and BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) at St. Paul's Hospital say that injection drug users who frequent safe injection clinic’s like Insite are more likely to enter into an addiction treatment program and more likely to end up quitting injection drug use for at least 6 months.

Between 2003 and 2006, the researchers followed 902 Insite injection clinic heroin users. Of these, more than 10% (95 clients) stopped injection drug use for longer than 6 months.

Dr. Julio Montaner, who chairs AIDS research at UBC’s School of medicine says that the results of the study show that people visiting safe injection clinics are more likely to stop using drugs. He calls on the Canadian government to end legal challenges to shut down the safe injection clinic, saying, "Many people benefit from supervised injection facilities, which have been shown to increase addiction treatment, reduce rates of crime and incidence of HIV, prevent drug overdoses, and now help people who use drugs quit injecting."

The full results of the study can be read in the journal, Drug and Alcohol Dependence.