HAS THE CRACKDOWN WORKED?

Shelters for Drug Users Are Overrun With Dangerous Dealers Escaping
Police Pressure

NO

When you provide a place to sleep for more than 500 people in the
Downtown Eastside, a police crackdown has a big impact.

For John Van Luven, the executive director of the St. James Community
Service Society, the second-biggest social housing provider in the
area after the Salvation Army, it means a lot of his drug-user
residents are put in an impossible position.

The users who do small-time dealing to support their habit have had
their routines upended, the usual dealers they work with scattered and
new dealers coming in who demand instant debt repayment. They want to
quit, but there's been no increase in detox or treatment beds.

Yes, his staff feel safer.

But in the shelters, "there's more desperation," he
said.

Van Luven has written a letter to Vancouver city council, urging them
to work on a drug strategy that focuses on all aspects of the city's
so-called four pillars approach to drug addiction.

"The crackdown is good because it's resulting in more people wanting
to quit," said Van Luven. "But it's bad it's only one pillar, not four."

At the Lookout Emergency Aid Society on Alexander Street, which houses
about 200 people, Karen O'Shannacery says the crackdown has resulted
in more violence as dealers try to force their way into residences to
get away from police.

To get into Lookout housing, dealers will try to befriend residents --
many of whom are mentally ill -- by supplying them with drugs in
return for access to their rooms. If that doesn't work, they'll force
their way in.

The residents in turn try to protect the building.

Leo Watson, who lives at the Jim Green Residence, was threatened with
a gun after he refused to let a dealer in.

Watson, a tall guy who doesn't take any guff, says it's inevitable
when there's a police crackdown. "When you push them off the streets,
they go into the bars and hotels. When they have to leave there, they
come here."

Watson and some others say they haven't seen much improvement on the
streets with the police crackdown.

Watson and Jude Swanson both have epilepsy, which makes them look like
they're drunk. Swanson, who looks like a graduate student with his
round-rimmed glasses, has already filed one complaint in 2002 about
police slamming him onto the floor.

Since April, he's had another incident with police, who he says threw
him into a car after he challenged them when they gave him a ticket
for jaywalking. He's planning to file another complaint.