POLICE PLEA FOR MONEY GETS ROUGH RIDE

Open-Air Drug Market Can Be Slowed With Additional $2.3 Million, Officer
Tells Council

A police plan to clean up Vancouver's open drug market was attacked
Thursday by advocates for the Downtown Eastside, drug-users and a legal
activist, while one councillor said he felt the city was almost being held
hostage by the police.

"You seem to be saying, 'If you don't fund us, the Downtown Eastside will
go down the drain,'" Councillor Fred Bass said. "Your story is very
convincing, but why wasn't all this done before?"

Police asked council for $2.3 million for overtime so police can maintain a
task force for six months that will work at breaking up the city's open
drug market and ensuring it doesn't spread to other neighbourhoods.

The police presentation was among a number from a variety of organizations
made Thursday to council's budget and services committee prior to the
approval of the 2003 budget. All money decisions are being delayed until
councillors consider the budget April 8.

Inspector Bob Rich said the drug market on East Hastings Street is already
spreading through the city, notably to Commercial Drive and the West End.

He said police need to do something different than what they've done in the
past to tackle the city's visible drug dealing.

"A good working definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing but
hope for different results," said Rich, who said that Vancouver right now
has a "perfect drug market" because it operates so efficiently for dealers
and sellers. They have a single place to gather, and users can support
their habits by doing a quick robbery and selling to a pawn shop within
minutes.

Rich said part of the job of what's being called the city-wide enforcement
team will be to make life difficult for dealers.

For the pawn shops, there'll be an "Operation Embargo."

"We're going to impose a trade embargo on the flow of stolen property to
pawn shops."

For dealers, there will be a similar crackdown.

"What I want to say to a drug trafficker is, 'We are going to make your
current method of operation uneconomical.'"

When Councillor David Cadman asked whether drug sales and use can ever be
eliminated, Rich said police can't ever get rid of drug problems. But
police can drive it off the streets.

"There are other ways of selling drugs. You can go to dial-a-dope and other
covert methods."

If dealers are harassed enough on the street, they'll go to those other
marketing methods and that's preferable, Rich said.

But John Richardson, an activist lawyer who defends people harassed or
assaulted by police, said evidence from other cities indicates that when
police get aggressive, HIV rates go up because users are driven into more
marginal spaces and are more reluctant to use needle-exchange or other
health services.

Jill Chettiar, speaking for a group called the Housing Action Coalition,
said the police's pilot experiment with the new aggressive approach -- its
clean-up of the corner of Main and Hastings by parking two police officers
there 24 hours a day -- has been a dubious success.

"It moved the market half a block down the street and now there are new
faces there. The use of the needle-exchange at the corner dropped by half.
That means 700 more opportunities each day for someone to convert to HIV.
That is not success. It's manslaughter."

Dean Wilson, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said
the police plan is baffling since it seems to be so out of step with the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's plans for treatment and safe-injection
sites.