New drug policy in Vancouver BC

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Vancouver Sun November 21, 2000

'This is an international crisis':

Mayor Philip Owen unveils his sweeping plan for city's drug crisis

Vancouver's drug strategy and harm reduction plan

By Frances Bula

Safe-injection sites for drug users and providing free heroin for hard-
core addicts on a trial basis are among the strategies the city of
Vancouver is recommending in a new drug policy that is the first of its
kind in North America.
The plan, to be made public today, also includes drug courts that
would put users into treatment instead of jail, special treatment beds for
young people, day centres for drug users outside the Downtown Eastside,
testing of street drugs to help prevent overdoses, and more police to
target upper-level drug dealers.

An unprecedented drug crisis

The plan is the city's response to what Mayor Philip Owen calls an
unprecedented drug crisis in which people are dying by the hundreds,
while many more are getting hepatitis C and HIV through intravenous-
injection drug use.
"These trends must stop," Owen said. "We cannot ignore this issue.
We cannot incarcerate our way out of it and we cannot liberalize our way
out of it. This is an international crisis that is scaring an awful lot of
cities."
Added the mayor: "Doing nothing is not an option. What we've been
doing so far is not working."
The report accompanying the recommendations notes that Vancouver
spends more money per person on dealing with illicit drugs than any other
place in Canada.
In 1997, the estimated direct costs of law enforcement and health
care related to drug use was $96 million a year.

24 recommendations

The new plan, a copy of which was obtained by The Vancouver Sun,
contains 24 recommendations intended to emphasize equally strategies
for prevention, treatment, legal enforcement, and harm reduction, a
strategy used in some European cities that is known as the four-pillar
approach.
Like European cities that pioneered it, Vancouver is also taking the
position that it has to act even if others are not willing to yet. And, like
them, it is also clearly shifting to a position that says drug addiction is
a
health issue, not a criminal issue.
The plan does not commit the city to spending any money or to
undertaking any immediate, controversial action.
All but two of the recommendations are labelled as the responsibility
of other agencies: the federal and provincial governments, the
Vancouver/Richmond health board and the Vancouver police department.
The report restricts city actions to creating a "Drug Action Team" to
coordinate responses to neighbourhood drug issues, and to supporting
some kind of process that improves local neighbourhoods' ability to fight
back against drug problems.
But Owen said the city already spends $10 million a year on programs
meant to deal with the drug issue, such as housing and service centres in
the Downtown Eastside. As well, he said, the federal and provincial
governments, which have the money and authority to actually do
something, are looking to the city for leadership and a plan that they can
throw themselves behind.
"The onus is on us to deliver that to them," said Owen.

Next step: Public consultation

The policy is only a draft so far. It will be circulated to the public for
comment until the end of January, with the final report, reflecting public
reaction, due in the spring.
But the policy, which sets out a multi-pronged approach that contains
some elements that are relatively radical for mainstream politicians, is
sure to draw both praise and fire from all sides.
Some will say it caters to drug users and perpetuates the problems by
suggesting the city consider safe injection sites, a heroin-maintenance
experiment, and clinical trials for other medications that could substitute
for heroin and cocaine.
Others will say the city has backed away from doing anything
concrete to start tackling the problem immediately and has caved in to
conservative forces by recommending drug courts.
Owen says that, while public reaction is important, the city will not
agree to a final strategy that doesn't have all four pillars in place.
"We're going to be very open, but we're not going to go without the
holistic, comprehensive approach. It's going to be controversial, but
there's no turning back."
Owen said other cities are looking to Vancouver for leadership.
"Everyone has a drug problem, all the big-city mayors have talked
about this. Every single one is looking for solutions. But nobody is
prepared to stand up to the plate."
Vancouver's problems have been highlighted because the drug scene
is so open, Owen said, but everyone is struggling.
Owen said he's already been contacted by the mayors of Yokohama
and Seattle for a copy of Vancouver's drug strategy.
"We see it all around the Pacific Rim. As soon as you get a
prosperous economy, the drug dealers move in."