CONSTRUCTIVE LEADERSHIP NEEDED ON DRUG SITES

Vancouver's Safe-Injection Program Faces A Lot Ignorance

Politicians will say anything to avoid addressing difficult issues directly
by stating what they really think. Sometimes they're so busy avoiding the
issue that they don't even bother to fully consider it.

That's one possible explanation for Greater Vancouver regional district
chairman Marvin Hunt's remark to The Vancouver Sun this week on the city of
Vancouver's "four pillar" approach to drug addiction.

Mr. Hunt, a veteran councillor from Surrey chosen as the GVRD chair last
month, said Lower Mainland governments shouldn't spend their energy on the
harm reduction pillar, which includes supervised injection sites. "Basic
geometry says a triangle, with three supports, is the strongest and most
stable shape."

That kind of logic suggests there should be an abundance of three-legged
animals, triangular buildings and three-step Alcoholics Anonymous recovery
programs.

Mr. Hunt also says he doesn't believe the GVRD is an appropriate forum for
discussion of a regional approach to drug-addiction strategy -- that it's a
matter for local governments.

That kind of logic partly explains the wave of municipal amalgamations that
has occurred in eastern Canada, after balkanized municipal governments
failed to find ways to work effectively together on key issues that overlap
jurisdictional boundaries.

Mr. Hunt was reacting to an Ipsos-Reid poll that found 50 per cent of Lower
Mainlanders outside Vancouver support the creation of places in their own
communities where drug addicts could inject themselves under medical
supervision and also be referred for treatment. He says he doubts those
numbers reflect public opinion in Surrey.

"I would suggest to you that, generally, the citizens of Surrey would
prefer to focus on rehabilitation and detox," Mr. Hunt said. Perhaps no one
has explained to him that one key reason for establishing supervised
injection sites is that they open the door to rehabilitation and detox.

The most likely reason for Mr. Hunt's specious arguments, though, is that
he simply wants to talk around the issue. As politics has clearly taught
us, expecting widespread leadership on a critical matter that affects us
all -- through the crime it spawns and the lives it takes -- is really more
than we can ask.

So we don't want to be too hard on him for taking the "three legs good"
position on injection-drug strategy. After all, Mr. Hunt's remarks aren't
the most foolish things to be said about harm-reduction.

Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement said the expression "safe injection
site" is an oxymoron. Never mind the experience of several international
cities that suggests the sites get users and their needles off the streets,
reduce the incidence of AIDS and hepatitis C, protect against overdose
deaths and provide a point of contact that gets some addicts into treatment.

B.C. Alliance MP Randy White says the sites "are nothing but a magnet for
drug addicts from all over the country, plus the United States, to go to
Vancouver." It's the drugs and the people who use and sell them that draw
addicts to the Downtown Eastside, not a clean place that offers a route out
of addiction.

Surrey Councillor Gary Tymoschuk told The Sun that supervised injection
sites tell people it's okay to use drugs. Only viewing the sites in
isolation, apart from their place in a strategy of increased enforcement
and treatment, allows that simple-minded conclusion.

Mr. Tymoschuk did, however, make one important point when he spoke to The
Sun about the issue. He said that Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, who was
elected in part because Vancouverites want to see prompt implementation of
all four pillars of the city's drug strategy, should take the time to meet
with Surrey councillors and discuss the subject.

We're with him on that.

Mr. Campbell well understands that ignorance about what harm reduction
really entails is the biggest obstacle to a constructive, comprehensive
approach to addiction.

Yet, so far, his approach to dealing with intransigent attitudes in Surrey
has been to threaten the municipality. During the fall civic election
campaign, he said he would "punish" Surrey if it drove addicts out of the
municipality and into Vancouver by restricting treatment options. He was
reacting to Surrey's move to raise licence fees for stand-alone methadone
clinics to $10,000 annually from $195.

That's not a constructive way to begin a dialogue with your neighbours. Mr.
Campbell owes it to Surrey -- which raised the fees after eight stand-alone
methadone clinics opened in a two-block area -- to meet with its council
and discuss these complex issues, so that we can create solutions that work
for all of us.

Effectively drawing an addict into treatment requires a sophisticated,
comprehensive approach. Dealing with those who fear that approach's most
contentious aspects also requires sophistication.

It's only by showing everyone affected by drug addiction what a
well-executed harm-reduction strategy can do that we'll be able to create
an environment where it will work.

And there's clearly a lot of ignorance for us to overcome.