NEW ADDICTION-TREATMENT PROGRAM SEEKS FUNDING

Federal Assistance Crucial To Helping Launch Innovative
Research

Innovative research trials that aim to help addicts kick drug
addiction - including crystal meth and crack cocaine - could make
Vancouver world-renowned for taking a far-sighted approach to dealing
with the dual problems of addiction and crime.

The $10 million scheme, called Chronic Addiction Substitution
Treatment (CAST), could be underway by the end of the year, as long as
the federal Canadian Institutes of Health Research approves it.

But after the federal government granted only a six-month extension
(until June 2008) to Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection facility
for heroin addicts, rather than the three-and-a-half years requested,
uncertainty abounds over the possibility of prolonged support from
Ottawa for CAST.

CAST trials go beyond the well-known treatments for heroin addiction,
of which British Columbia has traditionally been a leader, to include
methadone substitution as well as the more controversial supervised
injection site, which opened in September 2003 as a legal pilot
project. Addicts who have been typically hard to reach, including
those taking cocaine and meth, will be targeted in the research, which
experts say could change the way we deal with drug problems in the
future.

"There hasn't been much innovation in addiction treatment for many
years, so this research can help us develop treatment that will be
more effective and scientific than what we now know," says Richard
Mulcaster, executive director of the Inner Change Charitable Society,
which is organizing the trials. "It's not going to be a silver bullet
or solve the problem in one straight shot, but it will be one more
piece to add to what's required to develop the city in a more healthy
and livable way."

The project involves five separate pieces of research that will take
on more than 700 addicts, including 428 people in an amphetamine study
on cocaine and other stimulants. Using drugs that will be legally
prescribed by a doctor as a substitution for illicit substances, in
combination with therapy and vocational training, the trials seek to
get addicts out of the criminal circle. According to Mulcaster, the
results will not only allow addicts to get off illegal drugs, but also
relieve some strain on the police and court system.

"It's interesting how much emotion there is in addiction," says
Mulcaster. "Everyone has an opinion, and I think what we really need
to do is get better science in the mix.

"We may intuitively think something is not right, but there's very
little about addiction that makes sense, so we need to have tools that
prove one thing as opposed to another."

With up to an estimated 90,000 people addicted to heroin in Canada,
including at least 5,000 in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the problem
of addiction is one that cannot be ignored.

At a meeting held at City Hall on October 2, when the city's drug
policy coordinator, Donald MacPherson, presented a report on drug
strategies, the NPA members of council all supported a recommendation
that Mayor Sam Sullivan ask the federal government for funding for
Vancouver drug service agencies, including the CAST research trials.
The general belief among the councillors was that by submitting the
request immediately - as the Prime Minister was about to announce a
new national anti-drug strategy - Vancouver would be at the front of
the line when it came to dishing out the $64 million earmarked for the
federal plan.

Mayor Sam Sullivan said he understood that people might be resistant
to the CAST trials, but that it is important Vancouver receives more
money for drugs programs than any other city in Canada. "People are
not interested in going far enough in innovation in drug strategy,"
said Mayor Sullivan. "There's great resistance across the country, and
in our own city, about this initiative, but it's very important for me
it happens."

While the cost of the entire trial, which Mulcaster says could start
at the end of this year and continue to 2012, is estimated at $10
million, only around $2 million of that would be requested from the
federal government and would be used for the research part of the
scheme. The other $8 million, which encompasses the actual treatment,
is anticipated to come partly from the provincial government and
partly from private donors within Vancouver. The Inner Change Society
has already submitted reports on two of the trials to the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research, which has the ultimate say in whether
the program can go ahead.

"We don't know that there will be support on a national level; there's
always a question mark, but we believe we've made a tremendous case,"
says Mulcaster.

As the proposed trials are unlike any previous treatment program in
Vancouver - especially those for stimulant drugs like crack -
Mulcaster anticipates that some people may feel they are pandering to
addicts rather than taking a hard line.

But Ann Livingston, who helped form the Downtown Eastside-based
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) in 1998, as a way to
bring together people who use heroin and cocaine, says she is pleased
by the step.

"What a breath of fresh air that someone would have the balls to step
forward and look at chronic-addiction-substitution treatment for these
huge problems, such as crack smoking," Livingston says. "We're all
creeping around the edges, but the problem of how lucrative the black
market [in drugs] is can only be impacted by substitution.

"There's $150,000 coming off the Downtown Eastside street corners even
on a slow day. Let's not talk about the problem, let's act on it by
making sure there's a legal source of drugs."

Mulcaster agrees that the market needs to be dealt with, but not
through criminalization.

"The economics behind it is that as more police resources are put into
catching and incarcerating the dealers, the more difficult it is to
get drugs on the street and the price goes up," he says. "Then it
becomes more profitable, so even more people go into dealing. In
addition, when the drugs are more expensive, the addicts have to steal
more; it's having the inverse effect from what we want.

"We need to be bold and make some pretty courageous moves here; we
don't want to keep doing the same thing that hasn't worked in the past."