MARIJUANA ACTIVIST CRITICAL OF SERGEANT'S WAR ON DRUGS

Complaint Filed With Police Board As Drug Strategy Takes Centre Stage In
Election

Marijuana activist Marc Emery has filed a complaint with the Vancouver
police board over a police officer's criticism of the way the city is
handling drug problems in the Downtown Eastside.

In a letter addressed to Mayor Philip Owen, who chairs the police board,
Emery, mayoral candidate for the Marijuana Party, says Sergeant Al
Arsenault was out of line by saying the city has been putting a Band-Aid on
drug addiction with its liberal approach.

Emery was responding to a Vancouver Sun story in last Saturday's editions
in which Arsenault, who is opposed to the harm reduction approach to drug
addiction -- including safe drug-consumption sites -- expressed hope for a
tougher approach by a new right-wing mayor and police board.

"The politics are rapidly changing here, with a new chief of police to be
selected in a few days' time, some new (right-wing) police board members
and a new mayor to follow in a few months," Arsenault replied in an e-mail
earlier this year to Belgian doctor Ivan Van Damme, who had asked Arsenault
for details on the city's drug situation.

Arsenault is president of the Odd Squad, a group of police officers who do
public education on drug issues, and is vice-president of IDEAS-Canada, the
Canadian version of an American organization that subscribes to the war on
drugs philosophy and is opposed to drug legalization and harm reduction.

But Emery's letter says Arsenault's approach will only increase
drug-related violence, and asks the police board to "review the
appropriateness of this kind of political interference on the part of a
public servant."

It adds: "In this new political environment of growing tolerance and
understanding, there is no room for drug warriors like [Sergeant] Arsenault.

"If [Sergeant] Arsenault cannot accept the new harm-reduction philosophy,
he should step down as a member of the Vancouver police force and get out
of the way of social progress."

Emery added in an interview Monday he felt Arsenault's comments carried "a
subtext of intimidation."

Owen, who had not yet seen Emery's letter, said the matter of discipline
would be up to the police chief, but he called Arsenault's views
ridiculous, outrageous and ill-informed and that they reflected the war on
drugs, which didn't work.

"I wish he'd do a bit of homework instead of catering to the people who
believe in the war on drugs, which is a failure," Owen said Monday.

"It's unbelievable that he could be so ignorant and make such statements
and do so under the auspices of the Odd Squad, which is part of the police
department."

Arsenault, careful to stress his opinions are his and not necessarily those
of the Vancouver police department, wrote that "over the years, we have in
effect Band-Aided many of these people to death because of our liberal
views [on] our rights to use drugs. I have said this many times, but
addicts need the cure, not the poison. I have difficulty understanding why
those in power fail to recognize this simple concept."

The Sun story also said Arsenault complained last spring that an addiction
counsellor's talk to city managers about harm reduction was part of Owen's
brainwashing efforts to have people support his controversial "four
pillars" drug strategy, which consists of law enforcement, treatment,
prevention and harm reduction.

Owen, who is not running for re-election, partly because of a rift with the
right-leaning Non-Partisan Association over this issue, scoffed at the
brainwashing statement and said 27 cities in Europe and Australia have
brought in similar policies and were successful.

"All of them are of the opinion that it's the right thing to do, because
you're rehabilitating the user," he said.

Both Owen and Emery disagreed with Arsenault's view that addicts should
either be forced into treatment or jailed.

"See, he doesn't understand the assumption that they're sick, and it's a
chronic relapse condition," Owen said. "If you put them into jail, there's
easy access to drugs."

Emery said forcing addicts into jail would cost taxpayers more than just
giving them the drugs, and that addicts would only benefit from treatment
if they underwent it willingly.

Mayoral candidate Larry Campbell, a former RCMP officer and chief coroner
who was short-listed for the job of police chief earlier this year, also
would not comment on whether Arsenault's statements were appropriate.

"It's not my position to say," said Campbell, who worked with Owen on the
four pillars approach and safe-consumption sites. "If there was any
concern, Chief [Jamie] Graham would be looking into it.

"I think when you read the e-mail, it's clear what their agenda is."

Arsenault sent an e-mail to city council and police officials in December
saying: "Let's stop trying to dignify drug addiction and quit enabling and
facilitating bad [unsafe] behaviour by promising 'safe' injection sites and
heroin maintenance trials."

He has also suggested if the drug addiction problems were pushed out to the
entire city, instead of being confined to the Downtown Eastside, people
would be motivated to make changes.