NPA CAUTIOUS ABOUT SAM'S PLAN

NPA city councillors are choosing their words carefully about whether
they support NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan's idea to establish a drug
maintenance program for female sex trade workers.

Four of the five NPA councillors were asked by the Courier this week
about the proposal, but none would say they definitively support
Sullivan's radical idea. The mayor wants to give addicted sex trade
workers free access to drugs or substitutes so they will stop selling
their bodies for money to buy drugs.

"You're asking me as a politician to make a medical decision," said
Coun. Suzanne Anton. "It's not really for [the mayor] or me as
politicians to be saying what it should be."

Anton said politicians should seek advice from experts in the drug
addiction field before forming an opinion on such a radical drug
policy. But she noted research she's read shows such programs can work.

"I guess my only little qualification is, 'What if there is a big
body of research out there that said that this was an idiotic idea-
and I didn't know about it?"

Coun. B.C. Lee wants to consult more with Sullivan and read the
research on drug maintenance programs and hear from experts before
offering an opinion. If the drug maintenance approach is effective in
other countries, Lee would argue that it be part of a comprehensive
treatment program.

"If this is a way to get [sex trade workers] under control, to get
them mentally sound so they can move forward towards treatment and
detox, I would like to see that."

Lee cautioned that all Four Pillars in the city's drug strategy-
including prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction-must
work simultaneously for results to occur.

"We are trying one pillar at a time right now, and it seems it's not
working," he said.

Coun. Kim Capri said sex trade workers should receive help finding
housing before a drug maintenance program is implemented. Capri noted
the city already has a supervised injection site and a federal
government-run heroin trial.

"If people have a safe place to live, there's going to be less
concern about where people are using drugs and how they are using
drugs," she said. "I'm not in any way criticizing what Sam is saying,
it's just a different place where we prioritize. For me the priority
is safe housing."

Citing the Dr. Peter Centre on Comox Street as an example, Capri said
treatment, counselling and shelter are provided to people with HIV/
AIDS. A small supervised injection site is part of the centre.

"You have to have all those things in place because with people
involved in the sex trade, a consumption of drugs can just be
gluttonous. They're in so much pain anyway, they're just going to
continue to use until they can drown that pain."

Coun. Peter Ladner said public perception might be that Sullivan
"just wants to give out drugs," but that's not the case. Ladner said
he's never heard Sullivan say the focus should be solely on harm
reduction. Establishing a drug maintenance program for sex trade
workers would be worth an experiment if the other pillars were in
place, said Ladner, echoing Capri's push for housing.

"If it's part of a coordinated program that looks after all the other
desperate needs that those women have, then it can be part of a
solution," he said.

Sullivan told the Courier Monday that a drug maintenance program
would kick in only after social service agencies attempted to get a
sex trade worker treatment, counselling, housing or job training. His
public discussion about this topic has attracted the interest of two
unnamed men with offers of $500,000 and $10,000 to establish such a
program.

The mayor said he would be happy if the money went to a respected
research organization to set up a program. He added that he will do
what he can within the limits of his office to "move this agenda
forward."

Coun. Elizabeth Ball, who travelled with Sullivan to Ottawa this
week, was unavailable for comment before the Courier's deadline.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie has called Sullivan's idea
"reckless" and "dangerous."