VANCOUVER'S DRUG FIX

PHILIP OWEN has some hard-won advice for anyone who's serious about
tackling the drug problem in our city.

Treating drug addicts and substance abusers like criminals doesn't work.

The conservative former mayor of Canada's third-largest city was
instrumental in developing an alternative.

The four pillars drug strategy there is grounded in pragmatism.

Along with prevention, treatment, and law enforcement, the plan relies on
harm reduction - a strategy that aims to reduce overdose deaths and the
spread of disease.

Viewing addicts as better served by the health system and not the justice
system frees up resources so law enforcement officials can concentrate on
nabbing the dealers and producers.

"The user is sick," Owen told an audience in Terrace this month. "The
dealers and distributors are evil."

Owen's strategy includes the introduction of safe injection sites - a place
off the streets where addicts can shoot up away from the street, but under
supervision, reducing the risk of overdose deaths.

Now, nearly two years after Vancouver city council implemented mayor Owen's
controversial drug plan, there's good news.

It's working.

The number of overdose deaths on the downtown eastside, once as high as 147
a year, has plumetted by as much as 60-70 per cent, Owen said.

What's more, the harm reduction approach has actually got people off the
streets.

Vancouver Coastal Health opened up North America's first safe injection
site in September 2003 at 139 East Hastings. It's staffed by nurses and
counsellors who can steer the drug user to health services and support.

Owen said it's a particularly good place to briefly separate young
drug-addicted prostitutes from their pimps and dealers and give them a
chance to consider alternatives to their downward spiral.

And he says the zoo that was that block of East Hastings has been transformed.

"It's just unbelievable," he said. "There used to be 100 people in that
block. There's maybe 10 now."

The graffiti has even been cleaned up. "It's all neat and tidy and the lane
is clear."

It's vindication for a man who staked his political career on the belief
that there's a more humane way to treat addicts.

As the documentary Fix: The Story of an Addicted City shows, Owen - and a
team of community allies that included hard-core heroin addicts, beat cops,
front-line outreach nurses and others - was able to get council to back his
action plan.

But he ultimately lost the support of his own party, the NPA, which ousted
him prior to the 2002 civic election.

Two year later, his influence has never been stronger.

Mayors across the country - and across the border - are inviting Owen to
share his expertise.

It turns out as early as 1995 Owen was swayed by pre-eminent U.S.
conservatives who were literally ready to declare defeat on the war on drugs.

"The facts are in. The war on drugs has been a massive failure," Owen said,
adding he simply joined the rising tide of voices who questioned the
conventional wisdom of zero tolerance.

Owen, who spoke at a screening of Fix here March 13, was among the first
Canadian politicians to press for change, something he did after embarking
on fact-finding missions to northern Europe.

"All we have done is gone around the world and copy what everybody else is
doing," he said.

Everybody, that is, but the U.S. federal government.

Owen said the public is well ahead of the politicians on this one. "The
public are saying the status quo, business as usual, is not on."

Half a year after it opened, Vancouver's safe injection site (the 60th in
the world) is winning over some of the plan's harshest critics. "It's just
made things so much better down here, especially for the women," one area
resident told him.

The Vancouver "experiment" is being watched closely. Its lessons may point
the way for communities across the country.

"Terrace can be part of this," Owen said.

His prescription lies in holding community forums with a wide spectrum of
people - there were more than 60 in Vancouver leading up to the final
implementation of the drug action plan.

"Just have an intelligent dialogue. It may take six months to a year, but
it works."

Owen's message didn't make inroads with the audience he'd most like to reach.

Largely absent were police, doctors and city council members - who just
days earlier attended an RCMP-led drug forum that pushed prevention and
enforcement.