MAYOR TELLS WHY HE AIDED TWO ADDICTS

Sullivan Says He Wouldn't Do It Again

VANCOUVER -- More than six months after police asked Sam Sullivan to
explain what happened when he gave addicts money to buy drugs years
ago, the Vancouver mayor finally revealed this week that his actions
stemmed from compassion.

Mr. Sullivan said his experiences with two drug addicts several years
ago moved him to support harm-reduction measures, including a program
that would give drugs to addicts under strict conditions.

"I don't think I would do it again," he told reporters yesterday,
speaking of his having given money to two people to buy illicit drugs.

"It's not the way to solve the problem. You have to work through the
system, change things so that there would be long-term solutions."

In a statement to the RCMP this week, Mr. Sullivan acknowledged that
while he was a city councillor seven years ago, he gave money to a
20-year-old prostitute who was addicted to heroin and, later, to a
man who was an avid cyclist and a crack-cocaine addict.

When he began his campaign for the mayoral job last fall as a
candidate for the Non-Partisan Association, reports of his
interactions with addicts surfaced and became a political issue.

In November, Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham asked the RCMP to
investigate a possible conflict between Mr. Sullivan's actions years
ago and his future role as chairman of the police board.

In his statement to police, Mr. Sullivan recounted his friendships
with two drug addicts and noted that a newspaper article in 2000 had
reported his encounters with them. He also took the opportunity to
blame his political rivals, who Mr. Sullivan says used the incidents
to try to score political points.

"For five years no one ever questioned the legality of my actions or
worried about the health of my addicted friends," he said in the
statement. "During the 2005 Election campaign, former Mayor Larry
Campbell and his Vision Vancouver party made these experiences a
focus of their campaign."

Mr. Sullivan described how, in the late 1990s, he met a woman,
identified as 20-year-old Michele, outside a convenience store, her
face covered in lesions her makeup couldn't conceal. Mr. Sullivan
said he promised to give her $40 a day to keep her from prostituting
herself to feed her heroin addiction.

"After three weeks, I really noticed the effect my support was having
on my bank account, and became resentful that over 90 per cent of my
money was going to support organized crime," he said.

He said that after he told her he couldn't give her more money, he
never saw her again.

Mr. Sullivan said that a couple of years later, he met a crack addict
named Shawn and bought him crack and let him smoke it in Mr. Sullivan's van.