DRUG STRATEGY MOVES FORWARD AFTER LIVELY DEBATE

THIRD PILLAR - Mayor Larry Campbell promises that Vancouver will have
long-term plan on drug-use prevention within six months

Vancouver came one step closer to completing its drug strategy at a
marathon brainstorming forum Friday.

The theme was prevention and the debate was lively between the more
than 100 people invited to share their ideas on how to build the third
pillar in Vancouver's four-pillars approach to dealing with addiction.

Teenagers from an east side secondary school swapped ideas with an
academic expert on prevention from Los Angeles, while on the other
side of the room, the former president of the Vancouver Area Network
of Drug Users debated prevention methods with a young peer worker.

While the diverse group did not come to any concrete conclusions,
Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell promised that within six months, the
city will have the building blocks for a long-term plan on drug-use
prevention.

"[The plan] won't be perfect. It certainly won't be the end," Campbell
said. "It will never be finished because prevention is education and
education is a continuing experience ... but we need to see a drop in
addiction."

The forum's goal was to hear the concerns and ideas of people from
about 70 different interested organizations before structuring any
sort of plan.

Similar discussions have happened on two of the city's other pillars,
harm reduction and enforcement, but Donald MacPherson of the city's
drug policy program said this was the first real step in erecting the
prevention pillar.

(Treatment is the fourth pillar of the strategy and has yet to be
formally addressed by the Four Pillars Coalition.)

The city's drug prevention plan is timed to coincide with a renewed
federal drug strategy announced last May. The federal Liberals have
committed $245 million over five years to the strategy, which will
include a national prevention agenda.

Barbara Kennedy, a manager of Health Canada's drug strategy, spoke at
the forum and urged the local group to focus on what exactly it wants
to accomplish.

"Until you pin that down, you won't know what success will look like,"
she said.

Rodney Skager, professor emeritus at the University of California in
L.A. and an expert on prevention policy, was on hand to give advice.
He suggested conventional drug education in schools has not been
successful and that young people have to be more involved in
developing a strategy that will work.

Skager said the "ideal drug education session" would include respect
from everyone involved, honesty, questions and a few personal stories.

Although Skager doled out some advice, he also said he was impressed
with Friday's discussion.

"I know I'm going to go back and tell people I've seen a community on
the cutting edge of things," he said.

Robin Room, a professor at Stockholm University's centre for social
research on alcohol and drugs, said he too was impressed with the
forum, but also gave some sobering facts about the low success rates
of many prevention programs.

School-based drug education and mass media campaigns have shown little
evidence that they prevent people from using drugs and alcohol, Room
said. Instead, it is major social movements and shifts in a
population's common mindset that historically change drug use patterns.

"In societies like [Canada], people will never stop doing education in
schools, but don't think that's the solution to prevention and it's
all you have to do," Room said.

Despite Room's research, a group of students from Windermere secondary
school said they believe their one-of-a-kind peer prevention program
works and want to see it spread to other schools across B.C.

"To me, prevention means avoiding irreversible situations," said Neha
Musini, 17. "You start small and build on that."

About 50 students at Windermere participate in the prevention program,
which hosts a youth-driven forum and fair for elementary students on
the east side. The group of older students tells the younger ones
about some of the potential dangers of drugs, but is careful not to
tell them to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

The teens, along with most of the other participants in the forum,
agreed that a campaign with a message of abstinence will not work with
young people.