DROP-IN CENTRE FOR ADDICTS NOT ANSWER, FOES SAY

Community Alliance Spokesman Says If Staff Don't Allow Drug Use, Then
Addicts Won't Come

A proposed drop-in centre for drug addicts near Main and Hastings
won't solve any problems, says a community group that is opposed to
"harm-reduction" approaches to Vancouver's drug problem. If staff
members don't allow drug use in the centre, as is planned, then
addicts won't use it and they'll continue to congregate at Main and
Hastings, says Richard Lee, spokesman for the Community Alliance.

And if it turns out that drug use is tolerated at the centre, then it
will become a draw for addicts all over the region and magnify a
problem that is already unbearably bad, he said.

"We are convinced this will act as a magnet. The volume will only
increase once they know that police will not drag them out of that
centre," said Lee.

Lee was reacting to news from earlier this week that, in keeping with
a major three-government effort to improve the Downtown Eastside, the
Vancouver/Richmond health board has applied to the city for
development permits for four centres to provide services for addicts.

Two of the new services will be health centres that are moving from
other locations and expanding. One is a life-skills centre for
addicts that will go into a building opposite Oppenheimer Park on
Cordova Street. None of the three concerned Lee's group.

But the group was alarmed about the plans for the drop-in centre,
which is planned for the main floor of the Roosevelt Hotel, just a few
doors down Hastings Street from the Carnegie Centre, which has the
city's biggest open drug scene on its doorstep.

"Either way they try to operate it, it will not work out. There is no
incentive for the open drug scene to change," he said.

Members of the Community Alliance, a coalition of business owners and
residents that formed last summer, have pushed consistently for more
enforcement.

But Donald MacPherson, the city's drug policy coordinator, said he
believes the drop-in centre is an important first step in starting to
clean up the area's drug scene.

He said having the centre will give addicts a place to go besides the
street and start reducing the crowd that mills around.

And, MacPherson said, it's a mistake to think that addicts will only
go into buildings where they're allowed to use drugs.

"They have other interests. Many desire many of the same services as
anyone else. They would use all of the services of the Carnegie Centre
if they were allowed. But at the moment, they are marginalized and
stigmatized everywhere."

Currently, addicts are barred from coming in to the Carnegie Centre
while they are under the influence of drugs. With a drop-in centre
open, they will have some place to go even if they aren't straight.

The centre will provide health services, some form of food program,
referrals to other agencies, and community-centre-type activities run
by the city's street programmers who have, until now, provided
activities from bowling to aromatherapy to singalongs out on the
street in front of the Carnegie Centre.

Police believe that if addicts on the street have a place to go
inside, dealers will become more isolated and police will be able to
target them more easily.

MacPherson cautioned that the new centres are not going to solve all
of the area's drug problems immediately. Other cities have had to open
several centres and spend millions in order to bring their drug scenes
under control, she said.

The earliest the centre could get its development permit is April 1,
MacPherson said. He also noted that it will be a conditional permit.

"This is not the end of the world. If it makes things worse, well deal
with that then."

The news of the permit applications for the four centres was warmly
received by other groups in the Downtown Eastside, who saw them as an
important first step to tackling the area's open drug scene.

But Carnegie Centre Association vice-president Muggs Sigurgeirson had
said people would rather see a neighbour-based group run the
life-skills centre than regional board staff. There were also
suspicions that the Gastown clinic was being moved to a new location
to appease Gastown business owners, who have been vocal in their
opposition to any new services for drug addicts.

But health board representative Hardeep Dhaliwal said the board will
likely put out a call for proposals from non-profit groups to run the
life-skills centre. And, she said, the board had wanted to maintain
the Gastown clinic but expand the site. However, since there was no
room nearby, it was forced to move the whole clinic to a larger site
on Pender Street, two blocks east.