HEALTH MINISTER CITES VPD COP IN INSITE ATTACK

Health Minister's Speech Includes Indictment Of Vancouver Drug Policy

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement is using comments from a senior
Vancouver police officer to build his case against the city's
supervised injection site.

In a May 29 speech to Parliament's health committee, Clement
extensively quoted Insp. John McKay about the "slippery slope" of
allowing drug users to legally inject drugs at Insite.

"He's not out to win any popularity contests--he speaks the plain
truth," said Clement in the written version of the speech, obtained
by the Courier.

McKay is an outspoken critic of the Insite injection site on East
Hastings and has called the scientific research project "a failed
social experiment."

McKay's position is in contrast to the views of the Vancouver Police
Department, the city's drug policy coordinator and Mayor Sam
Sullivan, who chairs the Vancouver Police Board.

McKay was the officer in charge of the VPD's beat enforcement team
when Insite opened in September 2003. He is now a duty officer who is
consulted on major crime incidents in the city.

When Insite opened, McKay said, operators of the facility handed out
lattes and T-shirts to addicts. And, he said, the VPD agreed not to
arrest anyone with illegal drugs within a five-block radius of the site.

The decision to adopt a "no-charge policy" created a "culture of
entitlement" for drug users, said McKay, adding that an addict simply
had to say they were going to Insite to avoid prosecution. "In 2006,
the culture of entitlement was so bad that addicts were openly using
drugs at bus stops, school grounds and business fronts," he said.

The drug activity prompted the VPD to begin arresting addicts found
using drugs at these locations. Police warned Vancouver Coastal
Health, which operates Insite with the PHS Community Services
Society, before enforcement was taken.

"This was loudly supported by the public, however [Vancouver Coastal
Health] accused the VPD of not supporting harm reduction," McKay said.

It is not known whether McKay prepared briefing notes for Clement or
how Clement obtained McKay's write-up. The Courier left a message for
McKay Tuesday but had not heard back from him before yesterday's deadline.

Const. Tim Fanning, a VPD media liaison officer, wasn't aware of any
arrangement between McKay and Clement. But he pointed out that having
a drug injection site in Vancouver has created great debate in the department.

"There's a lot of strong feelings about it within our own police
department," Fanning said. "It's not unusual--there's people that
certainly can disagree with what they've seen."

In his speech, Clement called Insite "a failure of public policy...
[and] ethical judgment." More focus should be on prevention and
treatment and not on "palliative care," he said, referring to Mayor
Sullivan's description of Insite's purpose. "Palliative care is what
you give someone when there is no hope," Clement said. "It is
end-stage treatment when every other solution has failed and we just
wait for people to die. But injection drug users are not dying. There
is still hope for them."

Insite was supposed to close June 30, but a recent B.C. Supreme Court
ruling will keep the facility open indefinitely. The federal
government is appealing the ruling.