CANADIAN MAYOR PUSHES FOR TREATMENT CENTERS FOR DRUG USERS

Vancouver, British Columbia - In the heart of the Downtown Eastside,
where the back alleys are shooting galleries for heroin junkies using dirty
needles, a long abandoned storefront recently reopened with a handmade sign
out front showing a clenched fist clutching a syringe and the words "Safer
Injection Site."

In the last three weeks, up to 25 drug users have come here every night to
shoot heroin and cocaine into their veins. They are supervised by a
registered nurse, who dispenses fresh needles, swabs, sterile water to cook
the drugs, advice on how to maintain veins and even fresh socks to help
treat fungal foot infection, common among people living on the streets.

The operation is technically illegal but is condoned by the new mayor. He
was elected in November by a landslide on a platform of more treatment for
addicts, more thorough law enforcement and regulated injection sites. He
has not yet received federal approval to open his centers, but this
privately financed center has opened to fill the gap.

The Vancouver police recently stepped up their patrols and arrests in the
drug-infested Downtown Eastside, but they stay away from the injection
clinic, even though crack dealers gather out front.

The injection site, modeled after similar facilities in Australia, Germany,
Switzerland and the Netherlands, is the first to operate openly in North
America. Its presence is just one sign that Canada's drug policies are
moving in a direction that diverges sharply with those of the Bush
administration - to treat addiction more as a medical issue and less as a
law enforcement one.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in his waning months in office, says he plans
to introduce legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts
of marijuana despite strong opposition from the Bush administration. The
government is also planning a research project among a small group of
heroin addicts in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to see whether crime and
health problems can be reduced among hard-core addicts by giving them
prescriptions to maintain their habit, as has been done in Switzerland.

"Canadians see things differently from Americans," the mayor, Larry
Campbell, a former police officer and city coroner, said in an interview
this week. "The philosophy here is that the drug problem that we have is a
medical problem, an addiction no different from gambling."

John P. Walters, the White House national drug control policy director, has
called the Vancouver proposal for regulated injection sites "immoral" and
"state sponsored suicide" but concedes it is a matter Canadians must decide
for themselves.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Homeland Security secretary, Tom
Ridge, have told Canadian officials in recent weeks that they are worried
that a partial decriminalization of marijuana here could increase supplies
of the drug and exports to the United States.

Mr. Walters has said the United States could be forced to increase border
security, thereby delaying trade and transit, to protect against expected
increases in marijuana exports.

"Nobody wants to punish Canada, but we have to take reasonable security
measures as the threat increases," he said in a telephone interview on
Thursday. "No country anywhere has reduced penalties without getting more
drug addiction and more trafficking and all the consequences of that."

Mr. Walters said he learned from Canadian law enforcement officials that 95
percent of the high potency marijuana produced in British Columbia, valued
at $4 billion to $6 billion annually, was currently being shipped to the
United States.

Senior Canadian officials appear to be taking some of the United States'
concerns into account as they move gradually in a direction that several
Western European countries have pioneered in dealing with drug addiction.

Officials have tinkered with recent drafts of the new marijuana
legislation, to lower the amounts of marijuana that can be possessed with
no more penalty than the equivalent of a traffic ticket - to 15 grams from
30 grams, or approximately 20 cigarettes. The officials are also
considering raising penalties for marijuana traffickers and producers in
the legislation, a development United States officials say they would
welcome as long as the penalties are vigorously applied by prosecutors and
the courts.

The legislation was scheduled to be introduced in the House of Commons on
Thursday, but officials announced that it still needed work and would be
delayed for two weeks. A policy dispute over the bill is dividing Mr.
Chretien's cabinet, with Health Minister Anne McClellan cautioning that
decriminalization would increase marijuana use - at least in the short term.

But with Mr. Chretien staunchly committed to decriminalization and all
three Liberal Party contenders to succeed him in February publicly
supporting decriminalization, a marijuana reform not entirely to
Washington's liking is considered a near certainty.

In recent years, Canada has received growing criticism from officials in
the United States after officials in Ottawa legalized the use of marijuana
for medical purposes. Canada has also moved more slowly than the United
States has urged to regulate precursor chemicals that are processed and
trafficked in the United States as synthetic drugs, like Ecstasy.

Drug use is also an increasing domestic problem, one connected with growing
homelessness in Canada's largest cities. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
has estimated that there are up to 40,000 heroin users, who use two tons of
heroin a year, among Canada's 30 million inhabitants. Their estimate of
annual street sales of drugs is at $13 billion, according to the 2002 State
Department narcotics report on Canada.

Researchers and law enforcement officials say drug use is on the rise among
Canadian youths, but the government's response has been generally to
emphasize treatment and education and to try to minimize the harm addiction
causes over traditional enforcement crackdowns.

Vancouver, a port where Asian drugs enter the country and a trafficking
gateway for much of Canada's marijuana production, has one of the most open
drug subcultures of any city in the Western Hemisphere. The Downtown
Eastside has become such an eyesore that it was the major issue of last
year's municipal election and is an impediment to the city's effort to be
selected as the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

In his campaign, Mr. Campbell promised to install the first of several
regulated injection sites by Jan. 1. But six months into his term, a clinic
for supervised intravenous drug use is still facing financing hurdles and
awaiting regulatory approval from Ottawa.

Mr. Campbell said he was confident that the federal Health Ministry would
give him the go-ahead in the next couple of weeks, and a nonprofit group
has already been granted a city building permit to get a new site ready in
the coming months only two blocks away from where the illegal injection
site now functions.

Mark Townsend, 42, the director of the Portland Hotel Society, the
nonprofit group preparing the new site with 12 injection stalls, says his
organization will go ahead with the center even if the federal government
does not go along.

"We want to make sure it is inviting, not an eyesore," he said of the site,
which already has polished wooden floors, mirrors and plenty of room for
addicts to socialize and relax after taking their drugs. He added, "It
should be easy and inviting. And if then they want to talk about detox
while they are chilling out, that's great."