PROPOSED DRUG PROGRAM SHOULDN'T BE POLITICIZED, SAYS MAYOR'S NEW MAN

CAST's Objectives Include Providing Legal Drugs To Up To 800 Addicts

The new executive director of a non-profit society set up by Mayor
Sam Sullivan to create a treatment program for drug addicts says he
does not belong to any political parties.

Richard Mulcaster also lacks the political connections of his
predecessor Lois Johnson, who was B.C. co-chair for Health Minister
Tony Clement's leadership bid for the federal Conservatives in 2003.

But the 60-year-old former president and CEO of the Vancouver
Foundation doesn't believe a decision on the mayor's proposed
treatment program should be politicized.

I'm not in it to support Mayor Sam Sullivan or the NPA or any
politicians. I'm really in it for the community," Mulcaster told the Courier.

Mulcaster took over for Johnson last week. Johnson agreed to stay on
as executive director for only a few months. Mulcaster said he
committed to four months, possibly longer.

He now heads Inner Change, the non-profit society created to draft
the drug treatment proposal. The society has named the proposal CAST,
or Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment.

The program's objective is for doctors to prescribe legal drugs to up
to 800 drug-addicted criminals and sex trade workers in the Downtown
Eastside. The medication would serve as substitutes to illegal drugs
such as crack cocaine and heroin, the two predominant drugs on the
streets of the Downtown Eastside.

Yesterday, the society's board was to review an executive summary of
the proposal. Mulcaster is confident the final draft of the proposal
will be sent to Health Canada by the end of August.

The cost of the program, type of legal drugs and the number of
doctors needed hasn't been finalized. Participation in the program
will be voluntary.

"I know the board [of directors] and none of us really want to do
more harm [to the drug problem]. So for something like this, it's
really important that it be done in a way that it's going to achieve
good results and not just end up causing more grief."

The mayor sent a letter to Clement last Friday regarding the city's
drug policy. In the letter, Sullivan notes that CAST will require an
exemption under the country's drug laws.

Ultimately, Clement has the final say on the proposal.

Sullivan attached a copy of CAST "goals and objectives" with the
letter. He also pointed out that council recently supported a motion
for the city's supervised injection site remain open for another
three-and-a-half years.

Mulcaster said the issue of drug addiction and the Downtown Eastside
is not new to him. Before he retired from the Vancouver Foundation in
2005, the organization created a fund with money from donors for the
city's Four Pillars drug strategy.

Mulcaster is consulting several groups in the Downtown Eastside,
including the Ray-Cam community centre, to create their own community
foundations.

"If the people in that community had a foundation that they would be
on the board of and they could make decisions with respect to where
the money went, which organizations would receive it and for what
purpose, they would become equity players in the whole funding area," he said.