TORIES TO SHUN 'SAFE DRUG' SITES

Lack of Money 'Ominous' For Harm-Reduction Effort

OTTAWA - The Harper government's new anti-drug strategy is expected
to take a tough approach to illicit drugs, including cracking down on
grow-ops and pushers and retreating from "harm reduction" measures
such as safe injection sites for addicts.

The new strategy, slated to be announced next week, is also
understood to include more money for treatment and a national
drug-use prevention campaign.

The federal budget last March offered a glimpse of the strategy by
allocating an additional $64-million over two years for enforcement,
treatment and prevention. But the budget figures did not mention
harm-reduction measures, which aim to limit the spread of infectious
diseases through substance abuse.

"They haven't explicitly said they are getting rid of harm reduction,
but the budget numbers speak for themselves," said Leon Mar,
spokesman for the Canadian HIV-AIDS Legal Network. "There is no money
for harm reduction, which is quite ominous for what will be."

Joanne Csete, the network's executive director, recently wrote in a
letter to parliamentarians that the Conservatives are contemplating
"a U.S.-style war on drugs, an approach that has proven time and time
again to be counterproductive and a tragic waste of public funds."

Of the new money allocated in the federal budget, $22-million would
go to law enforcement efforts to crack down on marijuana grow
operations and to catch and convict dealers. Drug treatment programs
would get a boost of $32-million, including money for research aimed
at treating crystal methamphetamine addicts.

And another $10-million would be spent on a prevention campaign for
young people and their parents. Tony Cannavino, president of the
Canadian Police Association, said a national "say-no-to-drugs"
campaign would counter a perception among young people that marijuana
is legal, in light of a failed Liberal bid to decriminalize the
possession of small amounts of the drug.

The new Tory strategy is also expected to endorse drug treatment
courts, which already exist in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg,
Toronto and Ottawa.

Instead of criminal sanctions, drug addicts can be ordered into
treatment programs.

Canada is currently operating under a 20-year-old national drug
strategy that has been criticized for a lack of direction, targets
and measurable results. The government spends $385-million a year
under the strategy, most of it on law enforcement measures such as
police investigations, prosecutions and border controls.

A large share of the spending also goes to treatment, prevention, and
harm-reduction measures such as needle-exchange programs, in which
addicts trade dirty needles for sterile ones, and a supervised
injection site in Vancouver, where addicts can legally inject
themselves with the help of medical professionals.

The Conservatives have been skeptical about the supervised injection
site, saying the government shouldn't be in the business of
facilitating drug abuse. The site opened on a trial basis four years ago.

Last September, Health Minister Tony Clement ignored advice to renew
the site's licence for another 3 years, electing instead to give it
only a one-year reprieve.

The United Nations drug control agency warned in March that Canada is
flouting international drug control treaties by enabling illicit drug
use at the safe injection site in Vancouver.

"In a way, [Canada] is encouraging illicit trafficking," Zhu Li-Qin,
chief of the Convention Evaluation Section of the UN's International
Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said from the agency's headquarters in Vienna.

"Traffickers are searching for markets, and a [safe injection site]
serves as a small market where people go and legally inject drugs."

The RCMP, which has publicly taken a neutral position on the
Vancouver site, produced an internal report critical of the pilot project.

The three-page analysis, obtained by The Vancouver Sun in December,
suggests the "harm reduction" approach encourages drug use.

"The RCMP has concerns regarding any initiative that lowers the
perceived risks associated with drug use," states Staff Sergeant C.D.
(Chuck) Doucette, Pacific Region co-ordinator of the RCMP's Drugs and
Organized Crime Awareness program.

"There is considerable evidence to show that when the perceived risks
associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding increase
in number of people using drugs."

The new Tory drug strategy is expected to be accompanied sometime
soon by proposed legislation to impose minimum mandatory prison terms
for serious drug crimes, a Conservative election promise that has
been delayed for more than a year.