WHALLEY WAR ON DRUGS HITS ROADBLOCK

Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum's war on drugs in Whalley has run smack into an
angry doctor who runs the area's provincially-funded needle exchange.

Heroin addicts yesterday picked up their needles in batches of up to 200
just metres from a concrete roadblock which the city erected this week in a
bid to stop the drive-by drug trade.

Dr. David Henderson, medical director at the Street Outreach Program,
called the roadblock a "harassment program to bug us so perhaps people
won't attend the needle exchange."

He added: "It's a process of intimidation which is wrong. The needle
exchange saves lives. The mayor has a great misunderstanding of addiction.
We are part of the solution."

Inside the exchange's hole-in-the-wall office on 135A Street, staff
yesterday tossed out an estimated 22,000 needles buckets. Each needle given
out must be returned for disposal, said program director Linda Syssoloff.

A tough-talking McCallum, who has declared a war in Whalley on drug pushers
and criminals, toured the area Tuesday, telling street people the area will
be cleaned up block by block.

McCallum said the needle exhange is a magnet for undesirables and needs to go.

"The needle exchange is an important part of solving some of our drug
problems, but it's not in the right location," the mayor said. "Bylaw
officers, police and residents have identified it as a major contributor to
the problems.

"The people running the exchange are not co-operating. It disturbs me
because everyone needs to work together."

McCallum said that when he visited the area, "the lot beside the exchange
was littered with needles. It was disgusting, a disaster area."

The two-block stretch is a rundown part of Surrey city centre, which civic
departments and police are trying to clean up through a zero-tolerance policy.

The policy is patterned after one in New York, where ex-mayor Rudolph
Giuliani forced troublemakers out of Manhattan.

But drug addict Shelly Hindmarch said the city's policy "will spread us out
into the residential areas . . . there will be needles lying all over the
place."

McCallum is backed by Coun. Dianne Watts, chairwoman of the public safety
committee, who says council wants to disperse the needle exchange program
by using health facilities and portable units around the city.

But Coun. Penny Priddy, a former NDP health minister, calls the mayor's
approach "too simple," adding: "Closing the needle exchange isn't the way
you go about fixing the problems."