LARGER METHADONE PROGRAM FOR DRUG ADDICTS PROPOSED

More Prevention And Treatment For Young People Is Included In Vancouver
City Council's Drug Strategy

Vancouver's latest version of its drug strategy has added recommendations
for more prevention and treatment for young people, more help for parents
and a larger methadone treatment program.

But it doesn't back down on its controversial proposals such as creating a
task force on safe-injection sites or support for a medical experiment that
would give heroin to hard-core addicts.

Nor does it put more emphasis on enforcement, in spite of an intense
campaign from a group called the Community Alliance which represents some
downtown neighbourhoods near Vancouver's worst drug area.

A summary of public response to the city's plans over the last few months
suggests that the Community Alliance's opposition is not shared by more
people in Vancouver.

"We thought there would be a lot more anxiety from the community than there
was," says Mayor Philip Owen, who has taken the lead in supporting a
comprehensive drug strategy for the city. "I thought harm reduction would
be revised more than any other area."

But the public was generally so supportive that the most substantive
changes were in the areas of prevention and treatment, two of the four
"pillars" in the city's approach. (The others are harm reduction and
enforcement.)

The recommendations include: * Pilot prevention projects for high-risk
inner-city children between the ages of eight and 13. * A treatment centre
for addicted young people with a program that lasts up to two years. * A
pilot project aimed at getting people in the sex trade off the street. * A
public-education program for parents. * An increase in the availability of
methadone, a substance used to wean heroin addicts from their drug, to
create 2,000 new clients in the Lower Mainland. * A new emphasis on
preventing needles from being discarded in public places.

Councillors say they are generally satisfied with the new report, although
some said if the strategy is going to be successful, there will have to be
some way of measuring whether it achieves its goals.

Coucillor Jennifer Clarke said the document is innovative and she
recognizes some measures are controversial.

"But we've got to start the discussion."

She said she will be pushing to make sure that the strategy has clear goals
and clear ways of assessing whether those goals are being met.

Councillor Don Lee, who often carries concerns from the directly affected
Chinatown neighbourhood to council, expressed the most reservations.

Although he'd vote in favour of the report, he also said he thinks there
should be more accountability built into the system with a monitoring
process that evaluates whether neighbourhood conditions are improving.

"I say we need monitoring of programs not just for drug users but also for
the community and the businesses. Are they doing better, are there fewer
break-ins and so on. I'm very disappointed there is nothing like that."

He also believes that the report should not emphasize harm reduction as a
pillar, but incorporate it into the other three main strategies.

The public will get another shot at expressing its views on the whole plan,
this time directly to council, rather than the staff who were present at
the forums over the past months.

Comunity Alliance members had not seen the report Thursday and had no comment.

Charles Lee, who has been active in mobilizing Chinatown opposition, also
said he didn't want to comment immediately, saying only that "we are big
advocates of treatment and opposed to enabling."