COUNCIL TAKES FIRST STEP TOWARD INJECTION SITES IN VANCOUVER

Health Canada Will Have Final Say On Drug Abuse Pilot Project

Vancouver city council agreed Thursday to participate in a national pilot
project that would take a harm-reduction approach to drug addiction,
including supervised drug injection sites.

In a move applauded by advocates of Mayor Philip Owen's "four pillar"
approach to solving the city's drug problems, councillors voted unanimously
to take part in the Health Canada project, which would conduct scientific
research at a handful of such sites.

It also appealed to the federal government to offer more support and
funding for detoxification and treatment centres for drug addicts.

However, there is no indication when such a facility will open. Health
Canada has not yet formally approved the project.

The decision came at the end of a long public meeting that illustrated the
extent of the disagreement among scientists, law enforcement agencies,
social workers community activists and politicians about how to solve the
growing drug epidemic that has laid waste to the city's Downtown Eastside.

And the difference of opinion was underscored a meeting at the Vancouver
Trade and Convention Centre, where attendees at what was billed as an
International Drug Education and Awareness Symposium took a radically
different view, saying there needs to be more law enforcement and less
coddling of drug addicts.

Its backers, wealthy Vancouverites Lynda and Robert Bentall and their U.S.
partners, Drug-Free America Foundation Inc., vociferously oppose harm
reduction, the medical use of marijuana, and the concept of supervised drug
injection sites.

Owen said after the council vote he was pleased that his colleagues
endorsed his long-held view that solving the Downtown Eastside's drug
addiction problem requires a multi-pronged approach founded on prevention,
treatment, enforcement and harm reduction.

And Councillor Jennifer Clarke, who plans to seek the Non-Partisan
Association's nomination to run for mayor this fall, said she supports the
Federation of Canadian Municipalities' call for the national pilot project.

"I think a scientific trial should be done," she said. "It should be done
in a well-integrated program that connects the site to treatment and law
enforcement with the intent of moving drug users into a continuum of
medical care."

Dean Wilson, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users,
dismissed the IDEAS conference suggestion that a supervised injection site
would encourage young people to take up drugs.

"Waiting in line to see a doctor to get your heroin is a lot less cool than
coming downtown and shooting up in an alley," he said sarcastically. "We
have to take the glamour out of being drug abusers."

The IDEAS conference began Wednesday amid controversy and protests from
people who support harm reduction.

The conference organizers made no apology for it being an invitation-only
forum. They said they did not want to listen to people who support harm
reduction strategies.

About 1,000 people are attending the three-day conference to hear
discussions on such topics as Priority -- Drugs or Children? The Canadian
Perspective -- Is it Law and Order or Chaos? and The Media: Friend or Foe?

Retired provincial court Judge Wallace Craig said he'd seen too many drug
dealers and teenage prostitutes pass through his courtroom at 222 Main
Street, and believes the federal, provincial and municipal governments have
let the Downtown Eastside become "an absolute festering sore."