POLICE REJECT CRACK KITS, SAFE USE SITES

Council Voting Today On Drug Strategy For City

Proposals to hand out crack cocaine kits to drug users, and to study
whether to set up safe drug consumption sites, drew fire from a
senior Toronto police officer as council considered a drug strategy
for the city.

Staff Insp. Dan Hayes stressed yesterday that the force approves of
most of the 66 recommendations made by an advisory committee on how
to deal with alcohol and drug use in the city, and wants the strategy
as a whole to move ahead.

"We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater," Hayes told
councillors, who are due to vote on the policy today.

The strategy recommends stricter controls on the number of bars
packed together in certain neighbourhoods of the city, which creates
policing and public order problems.

"The drug with the strongest link to violence is alcohol," said
Councillor Kyle Rae (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) who led the committee.

The strategy says more drug treatment facilities are needed in
Toronto, especially for young people.

And it recommends establishing a drug strategy implementation
committee with public health staff, drug counsellors, police, federal
and provincial officials, housing experts and school board staff.

The plan has four facets: prevent drug abuse, treat drug abusers,
reduce harm for users who aren't ready to give up their habit, and
enforce the law.

But much attention has been focused on recommendations to give out
pipes and other equipment to crack addicts. There's some evidence,
but no conclusive proof, that the kits could prevent addicts from
spreading disease to each other.

Hayes said police don't support that policy.

"Distribution of crack kits is not necessarily harm reduction; it is
in fact going down a road of harm facilitation," he said. "It is just
giving another tool to commit a criminal act, and it just doesn't
provide a good message to society, particularly to youth, when there
is state-sponsored distribution of kits that assist an illicit
activity that is harmful."

Vancouver has set up sites where addicts can use drugs -- often
heroin -- with medical staff and counsellors on site. The strategy
suggests considering that for Toronto, although Rae said he's
skeptical it will work here.

"Everything should be on the table," he said. "You get to say no if
you don't think it's the right thing to do, but at least you've considered it."

Hayes said police don't favour the proposed safe use sites.

"The use of the term safe consumption or safe injection is an
inappropriate use of the word safe, because there's absolutely
nothing safe about consuming or injecting an unknown substance into
your body," he said.

"The problem we have in Vancouver is very different from what we have
here in Toronto."

Vancouver has suffered from "inappropriate enforcement, and an
inappropriate justice system," Hayes said. "They have a desperate
situation and they are reacting to it with a desperate solution."