NEEDLES AND DAMAGE DONE

An overflow crowd is sandwiched into a lunchtime meeting at the Carnegie
Centre, where the theatre is buzzing with talk of drug addiction. Mayor
Philip Owen and one of Vancouver's top cops, Insp. Ken Doern, are among
panelists gathered here to discuss the much ballyhooed draft discussion
paper, A Framework for Action: A Four-Pillar Approach to Drug Problems in
Vancouver. Just a few feet out the door, drug dealers openly solicit their
product to potential clients on their way into the forum.

It's another bright-eyed Monday at Main and Hastings, where the third in a
series of six public forums has been convened to shed light on an issue
that's held Vancouver in its grip for decades. In recent years statistics
show the city's drug problem getting worse, leading to a coordinated,
"four-pillar" plan to prevent people from getting addicted, treat those
already hooked on drugs, strongly enforce laws against dealing, and give
hardcore addicts access to decent housing and "safe" injection sites.

The draft Framework for Action report, authored by city drug policy
coordinator Donald MacPherson, has been widely debated since its
publication last fall. But only now are some voices rising above the din at
public forums such as the one held at Carnegie Centre. Among them is Dean
Wilson, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and
chair of the Harm Reduction Action Society, the most vocal proponents of
more detox centres, safe-injection sites and housing for people suffering
from substance abuse.

"The real story in all of this," he suggests later, "is the absolute
polarization of the two sides here, the fight between us and the so-called
Community Alliance. I think that polarization has been underreported."

Street-savvy activists such as Wilson tend to portray the Alliance as
right-wing NIMBYs concerned only about the decline of property values in an
area where Framework proposes to have harm-reduction drug services.

"In other cities," continues Wilson, "all sides have had their own agendas,
but at least they were able to sit down and talk about the issues. But that
hasn't really happened here. Somewhere along the line we've got to work
together. They're not going to get everything they want, and we won't either."

Wilson's concerns stem from his discussions with young Vancouverites, like
the student who told him it's easier to buy heroin than marijuana at a
local school. Another 15-year-old youth told Wilson that he started smoking
heroin and crack cocaine because the high was easier to hide when he came
home to his mother, who'd become wise to the red-eye results of smoking pot.

For the most part Wilson and civic bureaucrats support the Framework model,
which would cost $20- to $30 million to nip at a drug problem that today
eats up an annual $96 million of taxpayer coin (the estimated direct cost
of law enforcement and health care related to injected drug use and
HIV/AIDS in B.C., according to the 1998 Millar report dubbed Pay Now or Pay
Later). The only real opposition to major elements of the four-pillar
approach has been the Community Alliance, members of which bristle at the
suggestion that they are opposed to absolutely everything contained in the
draft Framework report.

"We're not against everything, and I really wish people would stop saying
that about us," laments longtime Gastown resident Michael McCoy.

He's unimpressed by the direction taken by Framework, which he
characterizes as a flawed report that's been drafted in the name of
political opportunity.

"This needs to be debated fully," says McCoy, "but they actively discourage
people from talking about alternative models. As an alcoholic, I'm glad
these people weren't around 20 years ago when they'd probably teach me how
to drink safely."

Like his fellow Alliance community group members, McCoy is turned off by
harm-reduction proposals to bring more illegal drugs into an area already
drowning in the stuff. Instead, the Alliance wants greater emphasis put on
treatment of drug addicts and the law.

"We have two demands," says McCoy. "We want equal enforcement of the law in
our neighbourhood, and decentralization of services."

McCoy and others in the Alliance aren't afraid to discuss prison as the
answer for those caught using drugs--the very addicts that the Framework
report proposes to free from persecution in the courts.

"Since when has jail become such a terrible thing?" McCoy asks
rhetorically. "How about instituting drug courts? I've read that 60 per
cent of the people using drugs in this area (including the Downtown
Eastside) are not from the area. Let's start by getting rid of those
people, and putting the other 40 per cent into drug courts, and let them
choose to go into treatment programs. If harm reduction forms part of the
continuum at some time, as someone who has been addicted (to alcohol) I can
tell you that I'd never give it up. We should aim to be the treatment
capital of Canada and not give the drugs away."

With hard-line stances such as this, it's no wonder McCoy and his Alliance
ilk don't get along with drug-addicted members of VANDU, which Wilson
insists shares some common ground with the Alliance.

"We don't want an open drug market, either," says Wilson, a heroin addict
who's in the last stages of methadone treatment. "It's not healthy for my
people, who are sick and we have to make them better. Dead people can't detox."

As for a sit-down meeting with the Alliance, Wilson says twice CBC Radio
has invited both groups to a call-in show and both times the Alliance
backed out at the last minute.

"I'll talk to them at any time, any place, but they don't want to discuss
the issues with anyone but the decision-makers, the government."

Gastown resident McCoy laughs at the accusation, recalling an Alliance
press conference last fall when a member of VANDU interrupted proceedings
with a steady stream of insults directed at Alliance members.

"Why would we want to talk with people like that?" asks McCoy.

"The bottom line is, we're not going away, and we're not going to shut up,
despite what some people would like."

Battle rages over health board bids The city's development permit board
will be a lighting rod for controversy starting Monday, Feb. 19. Attempts
by the Vancouver-Richmond Health Board to establish new service centres in
the Downtown Eastside have been met with fierce opposition by the Community
Alliance, an umbrella group for businesses and residents of the area.

Alliance supporters have written hundreds of letters in opposition to
health board permit applications for a Contact Centre at 166 E. Hastings, a
drop-in centre, expansion to a neighbourhood health centre, and another
health clinic at 59 E. Pender.

The services are supported by members of Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users (VANDU) and partners of the Vancouver Agreement, but the Alliance
says the money would be better spent on more law enforcement in the area.

The city's development permit board will hear public concerns on the
applications 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 19 at city hall, and again 4 p.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 21 at Plaza 500 (500 W. 12th Ave.). At least 250 people
have signed up to speak at the hearings