INITIATIVE EXPECTED TO BOOST IV DRUG ARRESTS

In an effort to get intravenous drug users to stop shooting-up on
city streets and parks, the Vancouver Police Department announced an
initiative yesterday to begin arresting and charging IV-drug users,
hoping to encourage more people to use the safe-injection site.

Insp. Bob Rolls, commanding officer for the Downtown Eastside, said
the initiative is in response to complaints from businesses and
tourists and because of the high number of needles -- around 7,000 a
month -- found in the immediate vicinity of the site.

But Ann Livingston, project co-ordinator of the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users (VANDU), decried the crackdown, saying the safe
injection site is already running at capacity and was never set up as
a way to deal with public drug use.

Rolls says the police department has done its homework and during the
busiest part of the day, drug users face only a seven-minute wait.

"We don't think that is an acceptable excuse to go shoot up in the street."

Rolls said the police recognize that drug addiction is a health
issue, not a criminal issue, "however it is in the public interest
when it starts interfering with other people's lawful use of the area."

He said officers will use their discretion and will only charge users
that interfere with people or businesses or who show a blatant
disregard for the site.

About 20 people protested the initiative in front of the safe
injection site yesterday.

Rob Morgan, president of the 400-member Western Aboriginal Harm
Reduction Society, is worried the initiative will not only affect
drug users, but homeless and crack cocaine smokers as well.

Insite, North American's first supervised injection site was founded
two years ago, and handles about 600 users a day. Livingston said
roughly 15,000 injections take place daily in the Downtown Eastside.

Rolls doubts that any of the arrests will result in prosecution, but
hopes the inconvenience of the arrest process alone will encourage
more people to use the site.