MAYOR'S DRUG POLICY PLAN LONG OVERDUE

Senator Campbell Wrongly Criticized Sullivan's Idea To Dispense Free
Drugs To Addicts

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is on the right track in wanting the
city to embrace a new radical drug policy.

We've spent millions of tax dollars over the last decade on police
overtime and law-enforcement sweeps of the Downtown Eastside with
nary a dent on the public disorder and street-market drug scene. Why
not try something new?

The attacks on Sullivan's plan to have medical staff dispense
currently illicit substances seem to me misguided.

Newly elevated Senator Larry Campbell is wrongly criticizing the
mayor's plan. It flows, doesn't it, precisely from the old coroner's
harm-reduction approach?

Sounds to me like Campbell remains puckered over the civic election
in which Sullivan kicked the butt of the made-for-TV mayor's anointed
heir, Jim Green.

Or maybe for the model of Da Vinci, it rubs the wrong way that
Sullivan unexpectedly eclipsed his star with his performance at the
Turin Olympics.

Whatever -- I say Campbell is off base.

Sullivan's suggestion is long overdue, in my opinion, and appears the
only way to treat those who have fallen so far through the safety net
they face death.

He is not proposing to give the local stockbroker a flat of blow for
a weekend binge.

I think it's important to recognize Sullivan is picking up the torch
of Campbell's predecessor, the true father of the city's
harm-reduction program -- ex-mayor Philip Owen.

Owen is championing this sort of novel thinking on drug policy and
travels the globe for the United Nations and other groups to promote
an end to the existing, near universal criminal Prohibition on
illicit drugs. The strategy is gaining momentum.

Owen, for instance, was among the many who turned out to support
former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper, who stumped the Lower
Mainland a few weeks ago urging exactly the kind of plan Sullivan suggests.

More than that, Scottish police forces this month got on the
bandwagon and urged their government to end Prohibition.

They called for all drugs to be legalized, including cocaine and
heroin, saying such measures are essential to tackle the spiralling problem.

Strathclyde Police Federation, which represents nearly 7,700
officers, says drugs should be licensed for use by addicts. The
federation issued a statement saying: "We are not winning the war
against drugs and we need to think about different ways to tackle it."

It says millions of pounds are wasted on futile efforts to combat
drug abuse, with resources diverted from other police duties.

In spite of the incredible work of diligent officers, there is no
Scottish village free of drugs. The same is true up and down the B.C.
coast and across our Interior.

Police are not making a difference.

After 30 years of a war on drugs, illicit narcotics are cheaper and
more available than ever. Drug use is way up, not down.

The current Prohibition achieves the exact opposite of its aim by
making drug trafficking obscenely profitable.

At the same time, addicts commit a disproportionate amount of crime
compared with their small numbers.

Yet imprisoning them is an expensive way to treat a health concern,
contributes to congestion in the courts, exacerbates prison
overcrowding and fails miserably to stem the steady flow of new users.

Treatment must begin via contact with addicts and what better way to
be in contact with them than to have them deal with medical staff
instead of the corner pusher? And what better way to ensure they
don't get the kind of impure product that leaves them dying or
consuming expensive emergency room resources?

Tobacco use is way down from where it was a decade or two ago -- and
no one had to be imprisoned for smoking or threatened with a criminal record.

There is every reason to believe illicit drug use similarly can be
reduced through education and health programs much more effectively
if the substances are legally available, regulated and controlled.

What we're doing obviously doesn't work -- and Band-Aids won't suffice.

The body politic requires radical surgery.

Contrary to Campbell's bombast -- Sullivan is consulting with experts
and community groups; he's not flying by the seat of his pants.

Why not give a new approach a chance -- especially if there is
private-sector funding to get it off the ground?