OWEN BACKS MAYOR ON DRUGS

There was a modicum of applause for Mayor Sam Sullivan last week when
he said he wanted to give addicted sex trade workers free drugs.

Sullivan has said repeatedly that he supports the city's Four Pillars
approach of prevention, enforcement, treatment and harm reduction in
dealing with the city's drug problems. But in his clearest public
statement since becoming mayor, and on the eve of an international
conference on harm reduction scheduled for next week in Vancouver, he
told the Vancouver Sun he clearly favours harm reduction and
questions the value of the other pillars.

It has caused quite a stir. But just as important, it has put an
issue on the table that faded away in the midst of the last
administration when former mayor Larry Campbell seemed to run out of
enthusiasm.

Sullivan's comments were prompted by a rumour. The mayor's office was
contacted and told that someone was willing to pony up $500,000 to
underwrite a harm reduction program that involved the distribution of
drugs to addicts.

For months, Sullivan has been privately discussing the possibility of
creating a maintenance program to provide addicts with heroin or
cocaine. He is, so far, vague as to how that would happen, who would
operate the program and who would receive drugs.

Some members of his own party think he's nuts. Some are annoyed that
he is undermining a perfectly good city policy, the Four Pillars
approach. You may agree.

And you can bet the Vancouver Police Department is a bit bent now
that the man who is also chair of the police board says that, after
three attempts by the cops to clean up the drug mess on the Downtown
Eastside "once and for all," there are no real signs of success.

But get this: Philip Owen, the granddaddy of the city's drug policy,
says Sullivan is right on the money. The war on drugs is a failure.
Treatment has very limited success in completely turning people away
from their addictions. "I support what Sam is doing," Owen told me this week.

Within the harm reduction community, the activists and city hall
staff who champion the supervised injection site, there is support, too.

Sullivan has always been the most radical politician in these parts
when it came to seeking solutions to the city's drug problems, from
as far back as the days when he was a bit of a flake on the fringes
of the NPA council.

His belief, blasted out as a front page headline last Friday that
drugs should be given to addicts who he considers "disabled," has
been around for years. The only difference-and it is significant-is
that now he is the mayor and in charge of the cops.

And one can only assume he won't be planning to hand out drugs the
way he once did.

Sullivan got into a pickle during his mayoral campaign when he
confirmed he bought crack cocaine for an addict who smoked up in the
back of Sullivan's van. That story caused an earlier incident to be
reprised: Sullivan told a reporter he gave a sex trade worker money
so she could buy heroin rather that raising the dough by turning tricks.

Sullivan was on a one-man harm reduction campaign. On reading about
this during the civic election, Police Chief Jamie Graham asked the
RCMP to investigate the man who could become his boss. The RCMP is
still waiting for a statement from Sullivan on his role in the
matter. Sullivan told one reporter he has been too busy to deal with
what he considers a "personal matter."

But even those who support Sullivan say there has to be more than
drug maintenance. When he met with sex trade workers to discuss his
plans two months ago, they reminded him it won't work unless he can
provide them with housing, financial security, skills building
programs and treatment.

And that will take a lot more than $500,000.