POLICE URGE CLOSURE OF SAFE-INJECTION SITE

VICTORIA, B.C. -- Canadian police officers are urging the federal
government to cut all funding to Vancouver's supervised injection site
which they say is a failed experiment that has displaced crime and has
only given junkies a sense of entitlement.

Delegates to the Canadian Police Association convention in Victoria
unanimously passed a resolution Friday urging the government to "cease
all financing of the supervised injection site program and invest in
a national drug strategy to combat drug addiction which includes
education, prevention and treatment." "We have a significant amount
of public and street disorder in the city of Vancouver, Tom
Stamatakis, CPA vice president and president of the Vancouver Police
Union, said after the resolution passed.

At the Vancouver site in the city's gritty Downtown Eastside, drug
users are provided clean equipment and supervised by medical personnel
as they inject cocaine or heroin in an effort to combat the spread of
HIV/AIDS and to prevent overdoses. A three-year exemption from the
federal government that allows the illegal drug use expires Sept. 12.
The Conservatives have yet to say if it will continue to allow its
operation amid mounting pressure from some city politicians, health
groups and community street workers to keep it open.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe, with the support of his police chief Paul
Battershill, has been lobbying for a similar site to be established in
that city.

Stamatakis advised against it.

The CPA represents 200 police associations across the country with
54,000 members.