DRUG TREATMENT SITE TO BE PUT IN DRUG MARKET

A plan to put an abstinence-based drug treatment centre for sex
workers in the heart of the Downtown Eastside's drug market has been
slammed by a sex-worker advocate.

"How could you even contemplate that?" said Jamie Lee Hamilton,
referring to the 20-bed facility to be created in the Roosevelt Hotel.

The hotel is at the corner of Main and Hastings where Vancouver's
hard-drug shame is at its worst.

Hamilton said crack cocaine can be bought there at any time of the day
more readily than anywhere else in Canada.

"The women are being set up to fail," Hamilton said.

"You should provide abstinence-based treatment away from the area
where vulnerable and sick drug users are preyed upon. Pimps and
traffickers regularly prey on women living at the Roosevelt Hotel."

During the trial of serial killer Robert Pickton it was alleged a
Pickton associate recruited women from the Roosevelt Hotel to visit
Pickton's farm.

"Placing vulnerable and fragile women right in the heart of pimp alley
and violent traffickers is subjecting the women to the most extreme
cruel and unusual punishment imaginable," Hamilton said.

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement and Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan
revealed on Wednesday the creation of the drug-and-alcohol free
treatment centre for female sex workers on two floors of the Roosevelt
Hotel. The Hotel was recently bought by the provincial government for
social housing.

The treatment centre will be operated by a charity selected by the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

Health authority spokesman Clay Adams said participants won't be
allowed to use alcohol or drugs, but will not be prohibited from
plying their sex-trade work. The health authority also operates
harm-reduction drug treatment facilities where participants are not
prohibited from using drugs.

Adams said there are successful examples of abstinence-based drug
treatment facilities in the Downtown Eastside, including the OnSite
facility atop the InSite legal drug injection site on East Hastings
Street.

"The location is based simply on where the target population is,"
Adams said.

The Roosevelt facility is part of the federal government's
$110-million, five-year anti-drug plan.

The participants will have access to mental-health services and,
ultimately, social housing outside the Downtown Eastside.

Adams said the authority has not yet selected a charity to run the new
program.