DRUG CRACKDOWN PUTS USERS ON RUN

Addicts Making Themselves Scarce As Police Target Downtown Eastside

VANCOUVER -- Just one of the paradoxes of the police crackdown on
public drug use, now in its second week, is that everyone in the
Downtown Eastside will tell you they know someone who has been
arrested, but no one has been arrested themselves.

Police are treading a delicate path between trying to appease
businesses upset at the troubled neighbourhood's downward turn, and
not undermining their own efforts with charges that will eventually
get thrown out.

Observers say police have publicized the crackdown in the Eastside,
arresting people dealing or using in public, to scare addicts into
changing their behaviour. By limiting their enforcement to public
places, they hope that the dealers and the addicts aren't displaced
to other areas of the city, as has happened in other crackdowns.

"It's a delicate operation," said Donald Macpherson, Vancouver's drug
policy co-ordinator.

It is too soon for hard numbers on just what the crackdown has meant
for the Downtown Eastside and the rest of the city. Yesterday, police
didn't have complete numbers on charges and arrests last week,
Vancouver's supervised injection site had not counted whether it had
received more or fewer visits, and it was too early to spot a trend
in some reports of drug use in other parts of the city.

But drugs users outside in the alley beside the Carnegie Centre at
Main and Hastings Streets know that police mean business, and the
feeling is that if you're going to get yourself high, first you
should get yourself scarce.

"It's hectic. There's a lot of people who aren't carrying their pipes
on them any more," said Conrad Girouard, who has lived in the
neighbourhood -- "Pain and Wastings," he calls it -- since 1988.

Now, being seen with a crack pipe means a search, and if police find
drugs, that means jail, he said. "We don't take chances."

But the users won't ever stop using, said 29-year-old Blaize
Careinal, who said he smoked crack occasionally but kept coming back
to the street to get a fix for his heroin addiction.

"They're like cockroaches. When the cops come, it's like they turn
the light on. They scurry away and hide. But they'll be back," he said.

No new staff have been added for the area, said Inspector Bob Rolls,
whose command covers the Downtown Eastside. Arrests are
labour-intensive, he said, adding that each one generates hours of paperwork.

Previous crackdowns always ran into trouble when Crown counsel
decided that although each drug-use case had a substantial likelihood
of conviction, it wasn't in the public interest to charge an addict, he said.

Now, in a deal with prosecutors, police are hoping to move forward on
the charges they have made so far, he said: five charges on the first
day, Feb. 17, and at least two yesterday.

The focus appears to be not on arrests but making users and dealers
stop conducting their activities in the open, Mr. Macpherson said.
It's a smarter strategy than is applied in some parts of the United
States in its war on drugs, and in China, which has "draconian" drug
laws but still has a huge drug trade, he said.

"Police are between a rock and a hard place with many members of the
community wanting more enforcement, but others saying they want more
resources [for addicts]," he said.

"But there's a limit to what enforcement can achieve in such a
complex environment," he said. "There's a lot made of it, but I don't
think this is that big an operation."

But gauging the crackdown's success is difficult because behaviour is
subjective, he said. Police aren't saying that they will solve the
health problem with more officers either, he said, adding that they
may be focused on gaining the appearance of success.

Officers still use their discretion as to what constitutes open drug
use, but police have refined their techniques since a 2003 crackdown,
Mr. Macpherson said. Then, the enforcement pushed dealers and users
from the Eastside to Commercial Drive and the downtown core but only
managed a handful of arrests, he said.

It's an open question whether police's lighter hand this time around
will push people inside, in alleys, or to other parts of the city.

"This is going to have to be evaluated with time," he said. "It's a
complicated issue."

While police walked along a dirty alley yesterday, with renewed
vigour and a new mandate, one woman in a pile of clothes flashed them
a knowing smile.

"Don't cause too much trouble, now," she said. "I know you guys are
up to no good."