POLICE UNIONS TELL OTTAWA TO CUT OFF INJECTION SITE

Canadian police unions are urging the federal government to cut
funding to Vancouver's supervised injection site which they say is a
failed experiment that has not reduced 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."

The resolution was passed on the same day Ottawa announced it is
deferring a decision on the safe injection site while studies are
conducted, but the decision will be made by Dec. 31, 2007.

"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.

"This harm-reduction focus has led to unprecedented levels of crime
in our city. Our citizens are saying that they don't feel safe. Our
citizens are saying that they're tired of the disorder in the city."

He said he believes a national strategy involving all levels of
government and the entire criminal-justice system is needed to combat
drug addiction and drug-related crime issues.

In an effort to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and to prevent overdose
deaths, drug users at Insite, Vancouver's three-year-old safe
injection site, are provided clean equipment and supervised by
medical personnel as they inject cocaine or heroin. The federal
government provided $1.5 million over three years for research and
evaluation. Health Canada has decided to renew Insite's operating
licence for a year.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe, backed by his police chief/city manager
Paul Battershill has been lobbying for a similar site to be established here.

Stamatakis advised against it.

"My advice to the people of Victoria is I think you should be very
cautious and you should be very afraid," he said.

When introduced in Vancouver, the safe injection site was supposed to
be part of a "four-pillar" approach to dealing with drug issues that
included treatment, enforcement, education and harm reduction.

Instead, what has evolved is a program standing not on four pillars
but on "one shaky toothpick" where all funding and efforts have been
directed to harm reduction, Stanatakis said.

"That's a strategy that's doomed to fail. It has failed."

He also said that statistics showing crime reduction in Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside where Insite is located don't take into account the
increased police presence around the site which has displaced crime
to other areas of the city.

Battershill said he had been aware of the unions' concerns that the
safe injection site was set up in Vancouver without adequate funding
for the other pillars in the strategy.

"One of the things we would try to do in Victoria would be to have a
comprehensive strategy that looked at prevention, education and
treatment as well as an SIS. I think that probably frames it a bit
differently here," Battershill said.

"If we can get a SIS going that also includes a treatment, education,
prevention component, then I think we address the concerns."

Lowe said the unions were throwing the baby out with the bath water.

"I agree with them that we need prevention, education and treatment
as well and I believe a supervised injection site was a component of
the prevention and treatment," Lowe said.

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