PRESCRIBE DRUGS TO ADDICTS, DOSANJH SUGGESTS

Premier backs Vancouver's new drug strategy but says it neglects
hardcore addicts' needs Frances Bula Vancouver Sun Prescribing drugs
for addicts -- not just providing safe-injection sites -- has to be
part of any comprehensive plan to tackle Vancouver's drug problem,
Premier Ujjal Dosanjh said Tuesday.

Dosanjh said even if safe-injection facilities were available, addicts
would still need to steal to get the money for drugs and would still
have to buy an illegal substance in an illegal transaction.

"Safe-injection sites per se won't do the job," the premier told The
Vancouver Sun's editorial board. "If there are people who can't be
stabilized or cured or dealt with satisfactorily in any other way,
then we should look at medicinal prescription of the drugs that they
might be dependent on under safe conditions."

He said politicians -- and newspapers -- need to have the courage to
speak out for what's right, not just what's politically saleable.

But, he said, "it takes more courage than I have so far
seen."

Dosanjh, like everyone else who has ever recommended giving drugs to
addicts, said it's something that should only be done after all other
options have failed, including drug courts, methadone treatment
services, and other programs that try to get people off drugs.

But he said politicians and bureaucrats tend to shy away from
advocating even that restricted form of drug prescription because they
fear it's not politically saleable.

"I think at some point, political expediency has to end and the real
concern has to take hold."

Dosanjh said the failure to come out clearly and say hardcore addicts
need drugs, not just safe-injection sites, is a soft spot in
Vancouver's proposed new drug strategy, but otherwise, he said, he
fully supports the city's proposal.

The city's 31-point plan, announced Nov. 22, says Vancouver's drug
problem should be tackled through a "four-pillar approach," common to
some European cities, that would improve enforcement, treatment,
harm-reduction and prevention. That means everything from more
policing to drug courts to more treatment beds to a consideration of
safe-injection sites.

The most public attention has gone to the proposal's cautious
recommendations to consider safe-injection sites and to endorse a
North American scientific experiment now in the planning stages that
would prescribe heroin to a select group of addicts -- an experiment
that is unlikely to begin for at least a couple of years, if at all.

Dosanjh said the city's plan is largely a reiteration of ideas in the
Vancouver Agreement.

The Vancouver Agreement is a joint city, provincial and federal
program to tackle the city's crime, drug and poverty problems, which
are heavily concentrated in the Downtown Eastside.

The three levels of government recently announced the first phase of
action, which included more health-treatment centres for drug users in
the Downtown Eastside, more policing, and some economic-renewal programs.

However, Health Minister Corky Evans confirmed that Tuesday's
announcement of substantial new money for health care doesn't mean any
dollars for more treatment beds, since the addiction-services
department is part of the children and families ministry.

And Dosanjh said that, although he's had several suggestions in the
past three weeks that the department be moved to health so it could
benefit from the almost $8.6-billion health budget, he wasn't prepared
to start shifting departments in an editorial board meeting.

But he did say the province is ready to move, with the proviso that
the federal government has to come to the table with some dollars as
well.

The province has managed to put $1.8 million into new health and
addiction services through the Vancouver Agreement, but that's a long
way from the $20 to $30 million the city has said needs to be spent on
its comprehensive drug strategy.