CITY'S DRUG POLICY LACKS COORDINATOR

Resignee Notes Need For Law Reform

Does the city need a drug policy coordinator now that the person who
held the position for almost a decade resigned?

The short and quick answer from Vision Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang is,
of course.

But should the coordinator's position left vacant by Donald
MacPherson be held by one person, or have the work spread out among
senior staff?

The answer is not clear.

"Maybe there's somebody on staff who wants to take that on as part of
their current workload," said Jang, who is his party's point person
on mental health and addictions.

What the future of the city's drug policy work will look like is a
question Jang has asked frequently since MacPherson announced his
resignation in September.

He pointed to senior staff in housing and social planning as capable
of continuing MacPherson's work. He noted homelessness, mental health
issues and drug addiction are intertwined.

He said MacPherson's steering of the city's Four Pillars drug
strategy in the early part of this decade was crucial to tackling the
drug problem.

Fewer Vancouverites are dying of drug overdoses and contracting
infectious diseases. The city also opened North America's only legal
drug injection site on East Hastings in September 2003.

But the strategy, which includes police enforcement and drug
treatment, is largely dependent on funding, political will and
amending drug laws.

MacPherson, who laid out drug decriminalization options in reports to
council, felt that full implementation of the strategy was hampered
by the federal government's views on drug policy and its continued
focus on the so-called war on drugs. It is the reason MacPherson is
seeking to form a national drug policy network to critique drug
policy at provincial and national levels.

"A whole group of people are being criminalized who are really in
need of health services," he said. "We keep behaving as if [drug
addiction] is a criminal issue. So I want to put much more energy
into that, and that is well beyond the municipal level."

He wouldn't weigh in on whether the city should have a stand-alone
person to continue his work. That's up to city council, he said.

Former NPA mayor Philip Owen, who was mayor when MacPherson became
drug policy coordinator in 2000, is worried that tackling drug
addiction is not a priority at municipal, provincial and federal
levels of government.

Owen pointed out that drug policy was absent in political campaigns
during recent elections at all three levels of government.

"It's just not on the radar screen anywhere and I'm really pissed off
about it," he said, noting the Lower Mainland's gang violence is
largely drug-related.

MacPherson said leadership on drug policy must come from politicians.
"They have to keep pushing and doing that advocacy work. If the
politicians don't advocate, it's very difficult for staff to."