MAYOR'S AFGHAN HEROIN WARNING MYSTIFIES POLICE

Despite warnings from Mayor Larry Campbell and the city's drug policy
coordinator that Vancouver could be hit with an influx of heroin from
Afghanistan, city police and the RCMP say there's little chance of that
happening.

Insp. Kash Heed, in charge of Vancouver police's drug squad, and Staff Sgt.
Chuck Doucette, head of the RCMP's drug awareness unit, say Afghan heroin
has never been seen in B.C.

For many years, heroin sold in Vancouver has come solely from Southeast
Asia, specifically Myanmar, one of the world's primary opium and heroin
producing countries. Even when Afghanistan was growing poppies-from which
opium is derived-the country's heroin never made it to B.C. shores.

Doucette, who is based in Vancouver, said it's misleading to tie Afghan
heroin to the need to expedite the permit process for trial supervised
injection sites.

"How would you prepare for it anyway? The injection sites are not going to
do anything to prepare for that. So I don't understand that at all. I don't
want to make any political comments, but I think it's pretty obvious why
they're saying that."

One of the mayor's election promises last fall was to open a supervised
injection site by Jan. 1. That date later changed to February, then to
April and now the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is predicting an
injection site won't open until summer.

Three weeks ago, council backed a staff recommendation to expedite the
permit process to open a trial supervised injection site. The report's
author, Donald MacPherson, the city's drug policy coordinator, wrote that
"external variables, like the post-Taliban, Afghanistan heroin crop that
may hit Vancouver in the coming months will require trial safe injection
sites to be in place."

Campbell expressed similar concerns. "I've warned people about this-I said
as soon as the poppies are allowed to grow in Afghanistan... we're going to
see it on our streets and I believe we are," he told the Courier last month.

MacPherson's comment, which was published in the Courier, prompted Heed to
call and correct MacPherson, who now says he wasn't using the Afghanistan
scenario as a tactic to influence council's decision.

"Well, that's a cynical view... all I was doing is making a point that
anything could happen out there, and we could be caught flat-footed again,"
said MacPherson, whose $95,000-a-year job was extended by council Tuesday
for another three years.

Since the drug market is ever-changing, a scenario where Afghan heroin does
end up in Vancouver can't be ruled out, he added.

"Just because we haven't seen Afghani heroin here, who's to say we won't
see Afghani heroin here? I mean we didn't see 200 overdose deaths in a year
before. But-boom, they happened."

Heed supports a trial of supervised injection sites while Doucette calls
them "a crock." For several months, the RCMP has refused to take a public
position on the sites, based on advice from senior officers in Ottawa.

Doucette said more money has to be directed to prevention and treatment.
"If you don't have prevention and treatment running to the capacity that
you need, then injection sites are not going to solve the problem. Open up
that same facility, and allow them to come in whenever they want, give them
a cup of soup while they are there and let them get medical attention, and
you'll accomplish the same thing."

Last week, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority submitted a proposal to
Health Canada for establishing North America's first supervised trial
injection site in Vancouver.

The health authority has identified a site at 135/139 East
Hastings-currently leased by the Portland Hotel Society-and the Dr. Peter
Centre in downtown, which would cater to the centre's registered HIV/AIDS
clients.