MONTREAL — Health Canada is reviewing the criteria for safe-injection sites for drug addicts and will be ready to accept proposals from interested cities by the end of this year.

The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act has already been reviewed to ensure there is no legal impediment to creating centres where intravenous drug users could safely inject their drugs.

The ministry is now shaping the guidelines under which cities could make proposals to open a safe-injection centre, Farah Mohamed, a spokesperson for Health Minister Anne McLellan, said Saturday.

"We're in the process," Mohamed said. "The minister, by the end of this year, will be able to accept proposals (from individual cities)."

Mohamed said it would take 60 days for Health Canada to review each proposal. Upon approval, the city would be free to establish a safe injection centre.

Since proposals will be welcomed by the end of this year, that opens the door for Canada's first federally approved injection site sometime in 2003.

A report in Montreal Le Devoir on Saturday said Health Canada would not play a role in funding the injection sites but Mohamed said no decision has been made.

"There's been some people saying they think Health Canada should fund it, but we're not at that stage yet to even determine the amounts of money it would cost," she said, adding that a decision on funding would come only when a prospective safe-injection site identified.

One person who feels Health Canada needs to play some role in paying for the sites is Ralf Jurgens, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

"Health Canada needs to at least co-fund these safe-injection facilities," he said.

The legal network completed a report in April calling for the creation of trial safe-injection sites and citing a Canadian Medical Association Journal article from August 2001 that supports its position.

"Supervised injection rooms are a logical next step," the article stated, "one that combines the merits of realism and compassion."

A safe-injection site differs from a needle-exchange centre in that it would provide intravenous drug users with trained medical professionals to monitor the injection of drugs.

There are 125,000 intravenous drug users in Canada, according to the HIV/AIDS legal network, and Jurgens said these people are at a high risk of exposure to hepatitis C, HIV and overdoses.

"Safe-injection facilities help address those issues," Jurgens said. "Governments have not done enough to prevent the spread of these infections among drug users."

The legal network report also quotes a 1998 study that estimated the direct and indirect costs of HIV and AIDS attributed to intravenous drug use in Canada would amount to $8.7 billion over six years if current trends continue.

Jurgens believes trial safe-injection sites should begin in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, adding that other cities such as Edmonton and Quebec City have shown interest. Mohamed said any interested city will be welcome to submit a proposal to Health Canada.

The legal network report also found opponents to safe-injection sites.

In Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, a suggestion to establish the sites was met with serious opposition from the Mount-Royal Avenue Merchants Association.

And the Vancouver Community Alliance accused an injection site advocacy group of putting the safety of drug users ahead of the safety of the community at large.