COVER STORY: THE DEADLINE DRAWS NEAR

The Fight To Save Insite

The exemption for Vancouver's safe-injection site, which allows
illegal drugs inside, will expire on June 30. Supporters have fought
for an extension, trying to meet with Stephen Harper, but complain he
and the Tories 'are not listening to anything.' After two years of
frustration, the sense of urgency is at its most desperate

VANCOUVER -- Mark Townsend has been trying for two years to sit down
with Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a quiet conversation about
Insite, the controversial storefront injection centre for addicts in
Vancouver's drug-infested Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. The
federal government is to announce before the end of June whether it
will waive the drug laws to allow the facility to remain open.

Before Mr. Harper reaches a decision, Mr. Townsend said, he would
like to give the Prime Minister a simple message: This is not about
ideology or politics, this is about public health and science. Insite
saves lives and helps some people get off drugs. It moves some drug
injecting off the street.

Unable to speak directly to Mr. Harper, Mr. Townsend has spearheaded
an unusual campaign, designed to reach the Prime Minister through an
ever-growing chorus of voices.

Campaign organizers did not look to a public-relations firm to shape
their message. They did not pay lobbyists to open government doors.
Instead, they worked with B.C. politicians, health-care workers and
scientists, each with their own perspectives.

Often, those who felt strongly about the issue organized themselves
to show their support. "It was just a lot of different people doing
their own thing," campaign co-ordinator Nathan Allen said. At times,
those from Insite were doing no more than co-ordinating schedules to
ensure demonstrations of support do not overshadow each other.

Still, it remains unclear whether this groundswell of enthusiasm for
Insite is having any impact. Mr. Harper and federal Health Minister
Tony Clement make statements in the news media as though they have
not heard anyone, Mr. Townsend said in a recent interview. Insite has
provided extensive research and has shown that the facility has
widespread support from across the country, but nothing changes.

"It's like they are in a feedback loop, and they are not listening to
anything," he said.

In recent days, Mr. Townsend has been trying to reach the
decision-makers on a more personal level. Mr. Townsend is the
executive director of the Portland Hotel Society, which runs Insite
in co-operation with Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. He has been
part of a cross-country information picket of constituency offices of
key decision-makers.

Mr. Townsend and two other picketers have turned heads as they showed
up at Mr. Harper's constituency office in Calgary with colourful
cakes from a Safeway bakery, and at Mr. Clement's constituency
offices in Ontario with flowers and chocolates. They also tried to
meet with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in Penticton, and with
Steven Fletcher, the Health Minister's undersecretary, in Winnipeg.

They received a frosty reception at some offices. Mr. Townsend
sounded amused as he recounted demands that they turn down their
music - which was Johnny Cash's version of Amazing Grace.

"We said, 'We're picketing you. So you're going to have to suffer our
music for a little while,' " he recalled saying to constituency
staff. " 'Just enjoy the picket and listen to the words.' "

They had some local news coverage at each stop and moved on. In
retrospect, Mr. Townsend said late this week, he has found the Insite
campaign disappointing. Despite their best efforts, statements from
both sides keep bouncing back and forth through the news media.

"That's the conversation we're having - that's it," Mr. Townsend
said. "That's a crazy way to communicate."

Clean space for addicts

The supervised injection site is a collection of 12 booths on the
main floor of a renovated building on East Hastings Street, a
skid-row thoroughfare in the poorest neighbourhood in Canada. The
facility offers a clean space for addicts to inject hard drugs under
the supervision of a nurse. Help is immediately available if they overdose.

Hundreds of addicts pass through Insite daily. The facility does not
provide drugs but offers a link to detoxification services for those
who are ready for them.

The former Liberal government allowed the facility to open in 2003
with a three-year exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act, in effect allowing addicts to bring illegal drugs
into the facility without fear of being busted. The federal
government subsequently approved two 18-month extensions, while
international research was reviewed and new research was conducted.

But its fate is uncertain after the current exemption expires on June
30. The campaigners hope the federal government will recognize Insite
as part of the continuum of care provided in the health system, a
decision that would hand responsibility for Insite to the provincial
government. But they are apprehensive about what the Conservatives will do.

A strong anti-drug stand remains a distinguishing factor of the
Conservative Party brand. Mr. Clement says he is "open-minded." But
when an international police organization that lobbies for
legalization of street drugs urged an extension of Insite's
exemption, it was the minister's own staff who put reporters in touch
with officers who hold opposing views. And when
government-commissioned scientific studies reflected favourably on
the site's existence, the government said science alone would not be
the deciding factor.

Mr. Harper arranged a campaign stop in Vancouver during the last
election campaign to reassure Canadians that a Conservative
government would brook no leniency toward illicit substances of any kind.

"The values of a peaceful, orderly, safe society are a problem none
of the other parties seem to care about," he told reporters. "We have
to do something about the drug crisis in this country." Then last
fall, the Prime Minister decried a culture that, he said, since the
1960s has done little to discourage drug abuse and often romanticized it.

"As a father, I don't say all these things blamelessly. My son is
listening to my Beatles records and asking me what all these lyrics
mean," he said. "It's just there, it's out there. I love these
records, and I'm not putting them away. But, that said, there has
been a culture that has not fought drug use, and that's what we're
all up against."

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Anyone who spends time with the ravaged people who use Insite would
never talk about the romance of drugs. Those struggling with their
addiction have no doubt about the value of the facility. "It was much
needed when it opened. A lot of people were going under, overdosing
in the laneways," Samantha Thomas, 40, said in an interview.

Ms. Thomas, who has been off and on hard drugs since her teens, has
been on a methadone program since shortly after Insite opened.
Closing down the facility would unwind many of the recent changes for
addicts and for the neighbourhood, she said. "If they decide to close
it up, I see them going back to square one," Ms. Thomas said.

A 57-year-old man known as Jazzman, who has also been a heavy drug
user at various times in his life, said he anticipates more crime and
damage to properties on the street. "It's just going to get ugly, if
they close it down. There will be more physical damage, more
robberies, and on and on. No one will want to open a shop here in the future."

Police officers on the street who deal with addicts outside the
injection centre feel a bit overwhelmed by the Insite campaign, which
they see as well orchestrated and well financed. They suggest the
community needs a broader approach to dealing with drug addiction.

Tom Stamatakis, president of the Vancouver Police Union, questioned
whether Insite could really be described as a harm-reduction measure.
"Harm reduction for who?" he said. With no legal source for drugs,
Insite addicts still commit crimes to obtain drugs they use at the
facility. That means people are still robbed and beaten so addicts
can get money for drugs, he said. Also, after injecting at Insite,
addicts return to the street with inappropriate drug-induced behaviours.

Mr. Stamatakis said the policing community generally sees drug
addiction as a health issue which society cannot "arrest our way out"
of. Police would prefer comprehensive strategies for intervention and
treatment, he said.

After two years of trying to reach Mr. Harper, campaigners now feel
an increasing sense of urgency to speak to the Prime Minister, said
Mr. Allen, an assistant bank manager who has helped co-ordinate
events. The Conservative government previously had excuses - they
were unfamiliar with the issues and needed time to review the research.

But the excuses are all used up and few questions remain unanswered.
"It's not about science, crime, community acceptance or politics.
This is a human thing ... and you have to understand that," Mr. Townsend said.

The past month of the Insite campaign

The Insite for Community Safety campaign began with a letter-writing
effort in the summer of 2006. About 400 crosses were raised in a
Vancouver park symbolizing 400 overdose interventions at Insite. In
the fall of 2007, the campaign went to Parliament Hill with banners
showing Insite users when they were children. A more aggressive
campaign began this spring and is expected to continue until the
government finally announces a decision.

April 22 Canadian Association for Nurses in AIDS Care holds press
conference in Ottawa.

April 28 The Portland Hotel Society seeks a court ruling that Insite
is a health-care facility under provincial jurisdiction and not
subject to federal drug laws.

May 2 The International Journal of Drug Policy publishes articles
from scientists condemning the Harper government for injecting
politics into research.

May 5 Criminologist Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University holds a news
conference in Ottawa to release research that shows Insite had no
adverse effects on crime or public disorder.

May 6 B.C. Health Minister George Abbott writes a letter to Ottawa in
support of Insite; a rally takes place in Vanier Park with about 800 crosses.

May 7 Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen and four mayoralty
candidates hold news conference in support of Insite.

May 9 B.C. Nurses Union holds a news conference at Insite. Vancouver
Mayor Sam Sullivan sends a letter to federal Health Minister Tony
Clement in support of Insite.

May 13 Leah Martin and Joey Only begin cross-country tour to hold
informational pickets outside constituency offices of prominent
Conservative MPs.

May 20 Retired officer Christopher Payne, a former detective-sergeant
with the Australian federal police in Sydney, Tom Lloyd, a retired
chief constable from Cambridge, England, and Tony Smith, a retired
Vancouver police officer, hold a news conference to talk about the
successes of supervised-injection sites in other countries.

May 21 New Democrat Jenny Kwan introduces private members bill in
B.C. Legislature to designate Insite as part of continuum of care
provided for people with addiction, mental illness and HIV/AIDS - the
bill would enshrine in provincial health legislation a range of
services for drug addicts, including the needle exchange, provision
for sterile, personal-use booths for addicts who inject drugs,
overdose intervention, safe disposal of equipment and education on
use of injection equipment and maintaining veins; a small plane
circled Victoria and Vancouver with a banner reading: Tell Harper -
Insite Saves Lives.

May 23 Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion meets with Insite workers
in Vancouver.