DON'T LIKE DRUG CRIME? TRY THE CAMPBELL CURE

Mayor Larry, Impatient With Those Who Don't See Things The Way He Does,
Chats With A Columnist Whose Home Was Broken Into

Mayor Larry Campbell summoned me to a meeting recently to talk about
property crime, drugs, the four pillars plan.

It seems the mayor and I aren't exactly on the same page when it comes to
these issues. He isn't all that concerned about property crime or that
quite a few Vancouverites are starting to question whether the four pillar
plan -- prevention, enforcement, harm reduction and treatment -- is working.

And what it comes right down to is that the mayor has many ideas about what
other levels of government and other people should be doing, but not much
about what the city could do.

Campbell began by empathizing for a recent break-in at my home, noting that
a number of years ago his elderly mother had a break-in and felt so violated.

I told him I felt less violated than angry that junkie thieves broke my
window, rooted through my home and took irreplaceable jewelry that belonged
to my grandmother, my grandfather and my mother.

He said he could understand how I might be somewhat less understanding
about people with addictions, having been victimized by them.

But these people are sick, he said. They have a health problem and I really
shouldn't link sickness and crime.

"You're not suggesting there's no link between property crime and drugs?" I
asked.

"No," he conceded. But he said addictions are difficult to cure and there
are many relapses.

The former cop and coroner said now that the police are back to full
strength following a round of early retirements, he'd like more cops out
walking and cycling in neighbourhoods. But there's no real timetable for that.

Where the mayor prefers to place the blame is with the courts. They're too
lax in sentencing, he said.

He'd like more drug courts, more jail time and any immigrants dealing, he'd
deport them.

"None of this namby-pamby crap. If you're dealing drugs, sorry, you're out
of here." (The fact is that the courts have already decided that's
unconstitutional.)

The mayor raised the idea of isolated towns or villages being used for
long-term rehab, citing the example of an isolated Italian town where a
businessman used his own money to set up a series of small industries
employing only recovering addicts. It's been so successful that the venture
is now self-supporting.

The mayor says he's going there soon to have a first-hand look. All
expenses paid by Vancouver taxpayers, no doubt.

I ask why he doesn't really follow the Italian model and set it up himself
as a business venture rather than a government venture. I suggested that
his farm near Dubuc, Sask., might be the perfect place for it. He just laughed.

Vancouver's problem, Campbell tells me, is that Vancouver is flooded by
drugs. Stop the presses.

He tells me that the U.S. war on drugs doesn't work. The European model
does, but it takes time.

"You can take the European model or the American model with prisons as a
growth industry. I'm prepared to take the risk on the European model
because the alternative would mean I'd just have to go to Galiano Island
and pull the blankets over my head."

I mention that in Europe there seems to be more emphasis on
safe-injection-site users getting counselling and treatment than the
statistics indicate we have here. (In the first year of operation, fewer
than half of the users got counselling and in the whole year only 78
referrals were made to detox.)

He fires back that the site, which opened in September 2003, is about harm
reduction, not rehab.

"If I can keep 15 people from getting HIV, I'm breaking even," the mayor
says referring to the high cost of health care for HIV/AIDS patients. "This
is a business deal for me. It keeps health care costs down."

(Campbell was recently quoted in a Melbourne, Australia, newspaper saying
that the site saves 10 lives a month. It's a rather surprising number since
there were only 49 overdose deaths in Vancouver in 2002 before the site was
opened and in 2003, there were 52.)

But back to the point: What's the city going to do about property crime?

Campbell says the government -- presumably the provincial or federal
government -- should pay for all addicts' drugs.

Although Campbell disputes the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse estimate
of 15,000 injection-drug addicts in Vancouver, he uses it to figure that it
would cost about $75,000 a day for drugs for each of them.

"I bet if you did that, you would stop at least $1 million a day in crime."

He pauses, admits he kind of pulled that million-a-day number off the top
of his head. But he decides to stick with it.

Why give addicts free drugs when we don't give alcoholics free booze?
Campbell suggests drug addicts are less dangerous.

I wish I'd asked him this: Since it's unlikely that any government is going
to be giving addicts free drugs any time soon and it's unlikely the city is
about to dramatically increase its police force, why doesn't Campbell
propose using civic tax money to provide rebates to residents who install
security systems and window bars?

But I didn't have a chance.

I also didn't have a chance to get a good answer from him on why we
shouldn't already be judging the efficacy of the four pillars plan by
whether there are fewer addicts and, by extension, fewer thieves. The
mayor's assistant had already told him it was time to go.

But most disappointingly, what I didn't hear from the mayor was any firm
plan that he and council have to deal with rising property crime.