Thomas Kerr ^1*, Mark W. Tyndall ¹, Ruth Zhang ², Calvin Lai ², Julio S.G. Montaner ¹, Evan Wood ¹

¹ BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS; Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia
² BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tkerr{at}cfenet.ubc.ca.

	Abstract

There have been concerns that safer injecting facilities may promote initiation into injection drug use. We examined length of injecting career and circumstances surrounding initiaion into injection drug use among 1065 users of North America’s first safer injecting facility and found that the median years of injection drug use were 15.9 years, and that only 1 individual reported performing a first injection at the safer injecting facility. These findings indicate that the safer injecting facility’s benefits have not been offset by a rise in initiation into injection drug use.

Key Words: Epidemiology, HIV/AIDS, Drugs, Urban Health, Substance Abuse