DRUG USERS ORGANIZE, SERVICES DISCUSSED

Policing alone won't eliminate drug addiction in Victoria--that much has
long been clear to advocates for drug users. But given the challenge of
finding money for long-term care strategies, policing is currently the only
visible part of Victoria's downtown action plan.

Still, says Gordon Harper, the plan that representatives of the Victoria
police, city council and Vancouver Island Health Authority announced on
January 31 has changed the public's perception of addicts and addiction. So
has Nettie Wild's documentary FIX: The Story of an Addicted City, which
showed at the Cineplex Odeon for three weeks during February and March.

"There is a group of people [in this city] who over time have been denied
services, who have been told `no'," says Harper, longtime board chair of
the Greater Victoria Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Society, which
officially amalgamated with the Vancouver Island Health Authority on Monday
this week. "What people didn't understand about substance use is once
[users] are addicted, it isn't a `lifestyle choice' anymore. The action
plan and FIX have put a human face on addiction."

AIDS Vancouver Island spokesperson Erik Ages agrees. "Decision-makers in
the community are working faster than I've ever seen them work, and with a
spirit that will get results for everybody," he says. "The most important
thing is that spirit of cooperation . . . now people believe they can fix
the situation. They don't see it as an impossibility."

Harper says it makes sense that increased policing is the biggest change on
the streets since January 31, because there isn't funding yet for an adult
sobering centre or an expanded youth detox facility. "The enforcement leg
is the only one that is controlled by municipal government," Harper says.
"Lots of folks in the addictions community are uncomfortable with it--we're
dealing with day-to-day, life and death issues, not public nuisance issues.
Most of the low-level dealers are addicted themselves, and they deal to
support their own addictions . . . the next piece of the action, which is
more services, and engaging people with information about treatment
options, that's lagging behind because there isn't the money."

While the city and VIHA look for funds, a collective of Victoria drug users
is preparing to push for change. On the first Thursday in March, Victoria's
Society of Live Injection Drug Users (SOLID) had its inaugural meeting, and
society president Garth Perry says about 30 users and supporters continue
to meet each week. The society modeled itself after the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users, the organization Wild focused on in FIX.

"It's been really organic," Perry says. "I haven't had to force it. It's
been more and more and more people every week, and we're getting a lot of
community support too."

Ultimately, SOLID members want existing services improved, and they hope
the city and VIHA will eventually back a safe injection site. For now,
Perry says he wants to build the collective, and familiarize the larger
community with the issues that injection drug users face. "We plan to start
attending council and police board meetings in the future," he says. "Right
now, we want [SOLID members] to feel safe, supported, not judged."

Harper says with SOLID, users can provide a clear sense of what users need,
want and think.

"The hoops that folks have to jump through just to stay alive, it's
amazing," he says. "You wake up in the morning and you know you have to go
through the same hell you went through yesterday. There are no days off for
addicted people."