MOUNTIES ACCUSED OF BEING ANTI-SUPERVISED INJECTION SITE

Vancouver's Pivot Legal Society is demanding the federal auditor-
general investigate the RCMP's role in trying to negatively skew
public and political perceptions of Vancouver's Insite supervised
injection facility.

Armed with six internal emails showing the RCMP paid for two negative
studies and then tried to obscure its own role in the research, Pivot
lawyer Doug King also revealed a deliberate RCMP bid to influence a
CBC show by asking police officers to call in with criticisms of Insite.

The emails also show RCMP tried to influence Conservative MPs to
shift away from harm reduction as a drug strategy.

King pointed out that federal Health Minister Tony Clement has
repeatedly cited the RCMP research as evidence the largely-positive
peer-reviewed research on Insite was wrong.

"The RCMP are supposed to be acting as peace officers for the
citizens of Canada, and we think it is an abuse of public funds for
the RCMP to fund a cynical critique of health-based research," King
said in Vancouver Wednesday.

In one email exchange, former RCMP Cst. Chuck Doucette of "E"
division in B.C., reported to his superiors that one of the studies
"has now been published . . . as per our request, the report has no
reference to the RCMP."

The RCMP-backed studies commissioned in 2006, one by Colin Mangham,
director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, and the other by
SFU criminologist Garth Davies, are at odds with more than 20
academic studies that found Insite has cut back drug overdose deaths
and checked soaring HIV rates in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

In May 2008 Doucette advised 17 email recipients, including Vancouver
Police, RCMP and the author of one of the studies, to swamp CKNW's
Bill Good with negative calls about Insite.

And Doucette referred to the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
as the "Centre for Excrements."

In another email, RCMP Insp. Lise Crouch, in charge of the RCMP Drugs
and Organized Crime Awareness Service, says that RCMP lobbying seemed
to be working: "The MPs that spoke to us at our meeting indicated
that was the direction they wanted to go in.

"As we know, with a minority government, it isn't going to change
overnight, but, at least we know this is what they will be pushing
for when they can."

On Wednesday, RCMP Cst. Annie Linteau, spokesperson for E division,
said she hadn't seen the emails but insisted "it's not unusual for us
to do research on a semi-regular basis. We're not academic
researchers, we're not scientists, we rely on outside experts quite
often. We hire and consult with people to conduct research for us."

Linteau said it was just coincidental that the RCMP-funded research
was negative toward Insite "although we do not support the
legalization of any criminally-illicit substance or anything that
encourages its use."

Linteau confirmed that Davies was paid $5,000 for his study while
Mangham received $10,000.