SULLIVAN SUPPLIED MONEY FOR CRACK

At least three times in his life, NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan
has given money to drug addicts to help them buy drugs to "manage"
their illnesses.

The 12-year councillor said he did it to also learn more about drug
addiction in the city.

"I believe for some people with addictions, it is a sickness which you
have to fix," said Sullivan, who is battling Vision Vancouver's Jim
Green to replace Larry Campbell as mayor. "For others, it's a
disability which is a long-term problem that you manage."

The recipients of Sullivan's money were a crack addict in his 30s
living in the Downtown Eastside, a young heroin-addicted prostitute
working in Collingwood and a close friend of the Sullivan family.

Sullivan wouldn't say whether he was worried about being arrested in
any of the cases, but said he won't apologize for actions now under
attack from rival politicians.

Coun. Raymond Louie, seeking re-election under the Vision Vancouver
banner, called Sullivan's behaviour inappropriate and said it did not
advance the city's Four Pillar drug strategy.

Louie wondered how Sullivan would feel if any of the people he gave
money to for drugs had overdosed and died.

"Is this the type of behaviour that's appropriate for a mayoralty
candidate, where he works outside the system?" said Louie, noting
Sullivan doesn't have a medical degree. "It's surprising that he would
undertake that role."

The most recent case involving Sullivan occurred more than three years
ago. Sullivan said he gave money to Shawn Millar, a community
activist, to buy crack cocaine in the Downtown Eastside.

He supplied the money to Millar after meeting him for dinner in
Chinatown. Sullivan responded to an email from Millar, and wanted to
help him launch a bike tour to promote free heroin programs.

"Obviously he was getting very agitated in the middle of our
conversation and he was going to leave and I just asked him, 'What's
wrong?', and he said, 'I need money for drugs.' I was worried he would
go steal something or do something illegal, so I offered him the
money. Then I figured I was there to learn, so why don't I learn how
he does it."

Millar bought crack cocaine, which sells for $10 a rock, while
Sullivan waited in his van at Columbia and Hastings. Once the deal was
done, Millar smoked the crack inside Sullivan's van.

Millar left to buy more drugs with money from the councillor because
Sullivan, who is disabled and in a wheelchair, didn't witness the
first transaction.

"He went out of the van and went up the street and I just observed
him," Sullivan said. "Where we were, drugs were blatantly and openly
being sold and consumed. It was quite shocking what was going on."

In a more expensive harm reduction experiment, Sullivan, who now lives
in Yaletown, gave a 20-year-old prostitute $40 a day to buy heroin for
three weeks. The incident occurred in the late 1990s when Sullivan
lived in Collingwood.

He said he wanted to prevent the woman, who was plying her trade
outside a convenience store in his neighbourhood, from turning tricks
to feed her habit.

"This was a young woman who had a mother that loved her in Calgary. I
had become very angry with a society that would let this lovely young
woman degrade herself because our morals wouldn't allow us to accept
where she was and help her try to move past it without destroying her
life in the process."

In a third case, Sullivan said, he gave money to a family friend who
was addicted to drugs. He wouldn't elaborate but said he was no longer
supplying the money.

Sullivan is an advocate of the city's drug strategy, and claims to
have been the first politician in Canada-in 1997-to call for harm
reduction as part of public policy.

Since then, Sullivan has also called for the federal government to
ditch the city's heroin maintenance trials and simply issue the drug
to addicts throughout the city.

The sooner the government dispenses heroin, the sooner crime such as
break-ins caused by addicts will decrease in Vancouver, he said.
Sullivan also believes politicians have focused too much on the city's
supervised injection site instead of the victims of crimes caused by
drug addicts.

"I believe this government has focused totally on the person with the
addiction and almost not at all on the reduction of harm to the
community," he added.

The election is Nov. 19.