CITY DOESN'T HAVE PLAN B

As Vancouver waits for the federal Conservative government to decide
the future of the city's supervised injection site next month, if
it's closed, the city has no plan to cater to the 1,000 addicts who
use the facility.

Donald MacPherson, the city's drug policy coordinator, said the city
hasn't devised a plan because research on the effectiveness of the
site has been overwhelmingly positive.

"There's pretty compelling evidence to continue the research,"
MacPherson said of the three-year scientific experiment which began
September 2003.

The facility at 139 East Hastings-called Insite-has the support of
Mayor Sam Sullivan, Police Chief Jamie Graham and Vancouver-Kingsway
Conservative MP David Emerson.

That support coupled with the evaluations conducted by the B.C.
Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS are reasons the city saw no need
for a back-up plan.

"That's why people aren't panicking in that sense," MacPherson said.
"But should [the Conservatives] decide to close it, we'll have to sit
down and try and figure out what to do with the people who use it."

Insite operates legally thanks to an exemption under the country's
drug laws granted by the previous Liberal government.

Vancouver Coastal Health operates the facility in conjunction with
PHS Community Services Society. It's the only legal injection site in
North America.

The experiment expires Sept. 12. A spokesman for Health Minister Tony
Clement's office told the Courier earlier this month that the
government would make an announcement on the site's future prior to
the expiry date.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on an earlier trip to Vancouver he
would consult with the RCMP before his government made a decision.

On Monday, the B.C. division of the RCMP said in a news release it
doesn't support the city's injection site, despite the Vancouver
police department's support.

Reasons include the force not backing "any initiatives that encourage
the use of illicit substances" and the lack of drug treatment
programs associated with the site.

"Clearly, harm reduction initiatives must encourage a transition to
treatment and not facilitate a state of perpetual use," the release said.

The release concluded, "We remain in discussions with our community,
government and law enforcement partners on this issue. Until research
is completed, we oppose the expansion of the SIS pilot project in
Vancouver. The decision to have supervised injection sites is a
Government of Canada decision."

The RCMP's position comes despite positive conclusions reached by two
criminologists commissioned by the RCMP to conduct reports on the site.

The Courier obtained the reports conducted by Raymond Corrado of
Simon Fraser University and Irwin Cohen of University College of the
Fraser Valley.

The authors concluded that, generally, the outcomes of the facility
are positive. Their findings were based on reviews of literature
published on Insite.

In the RCMP's release, the national force was quick to point out "the
reviews reflect the opinions of the authors, and not of the RCMP."

MacPherson characterized the RCMP release as "an odd statement"
considering proponents of the site want to extend it for more research.

"One would wonder why they would oppose completing the research
because the extension of the site is for the purposes of completing
more public health research."

Added MacPherson: "So it is a bit of an odd rationale and I think
they're trying to recover from the fact that the reports that they
commissioned were fairly positive about the site."

A message left yesterday morning with the RCMP was not returned
before the Courier's deadline.