CITY CALLS MORATORIUM ON FACILITIES FOR DRUG USERS

Mayor Philip Owen has called a 90-day moratorium on permits and
applications for facilities for drug users in the Downtown Eastside.

The move comes in response to a call by a recently formed alliance of
Vancouver community and business leaders for government's to stop
funding programs that facilitate drug use and do not include treatment
for addiction, including the needle exchange, resource centres,
safe-fixing sites and quality of life counselling.

The moratorium halts progress on a multi-service resource centre for
drug users proposed for Powell Street.

City staff have also been working on a proposal to put a resource
centre in the Roosevelt Hotel near Main and Hastings aimed at getting
addicts off the street.

"That [project] is included," said the mayor.

Owen wants a cooling-off period where everyone can get together and
analyse the situation and sort it out.

The city has been pursuing a so-called "four-pillar approach," which
includes prevention, treatment, harm-reduction and
enforcement.

"You can tell from [the Alliance member's] demands that they are very
frustrated. I agree with their frustration. It's understandable." The
mayor called on the province to come forward with health and social
services that are not in the city's mandate.

Owen said that the closure of Pender Detox centre and the drastic cuts
in the number of beds at Riverview have exacerbated the city's problems.

"The treatment issue has not been seriously considered at the
provincial level."

He said the city had been in talks with the provincial government
about drug courts for two years.

"It's all ready to go. We have a million dollars from Ottawa. Victoria
hasn't acted on any of these things."

The mayor called upon the B.C. premier and the cabinet to take action
on the verbal agreements made with the city over the past three years.
"Enough already. Come forward and help us," Owen said.

The Gastown-Chinatown-Strathcona-Victory Square Community Alliance is
just a month old and had scheduled a press conference for Wednesday
afternoon to press for change in drug policy at all levels of
government. But their efforts were broken up when a small group of
protesters arrived to shout down the speakers.

"This is our community too. The [Community Alliance] represent
business interests and property owners, not the community. We
represent the low income people who live here. We're the heart of
Vancouver," they shouted.

Carnegie Community Action Project worker Tom LaViolette, Jeff Sommers
and Downtown Eastside activist Muggs Sigurgeirson were surrounded by
private security and handed over to police who removed them from the
scene in a paddy wagon.

"These people want to stay on drugs, have it respected as a life-style
and be provided with services to support that," said Grant Longhurst,
of the Community Alliance. Longhurst is a former communications
co-ordinator for the Non-Partisan Association.

Longhurst and the Community Alliance made a presentation to the mayor
last Thursday putting forward their demands.

"The 90-day moratorium is definitely a positive step. We appreciate
that the mayor is giving us some time to work on further influencing
policy," he said.

Longhurst also said that the record shows that government spending and
policies in the Downtown Eastside have failed.

"We are asking that all three levels of government cease to support or
fund resources for anything that facilitates or maintains use and
dealing of illegal drugs such as needle exchange, resource centres,
safe-fixing sites and quality of life counselling.

"These approaches are futile. It says we are giving up -- that there's
no hope."

But Bryan Alleyne, President of VANDU (Vancouver Area Drug Users)
said, "In the Downtown Eastside, a three-month moratorium on harm
reduction measures is equal to 90 drug overdose deaths."

Alleyne said that from 1988 to 1998 there have been 2405 deaths due to
drug overdoses.