CHIEFS QUESTION INJECTION SITES

A national police association's call for more treatment facilities
before supervised injection sites are permitted will not affect
Vancouver's push to open the sites early in the new year, says Mayor
Larry Campbell.

Speaking on behalf of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, RCMP
Chief Superintendent Raf Souccar made the remark at a meeting this
week in Ottawa that included Campbell and health care professionals
from Vancouver. "I don't think that they have any say in it, quite
frankly," Campbell said. "That's the position of the chiefs of police,
but we have good support in Vancouver. Chief Jamie Graham and I have
talked about this and he understands it, and the Vancouver police are
supportive of this and know we have to move on it."

RCMP headquarters in Ottawa was quick to indicate Souccar was speaking
on behalf of the chiefs' association, not the Mounties. As of Friday,
the Mounties still hadn't released an official position on the
injection sites.

"Do we have concerns about supervised injection sites? Yes," said RCMP
Staff Sgt. Paul Marsh, spokesman for RCMP headquarters in Ottawa.

While Vancouver has its own police force, the Mounties also work in
the city, sometimes alongside city police on investigations. That
raises the prospect of a clash with the Vancouver police department,
which supports a scientific trial of injection sites.

Although he acknowledged police across the country have diverse
opinions about injection sites, Vancouver police Insp. Kash Heed, who
is in charge of drug enforcement in the city, downplayed the prospect
of friction between the two forces.

"I don't think you'll see the RCMP come out and say they're opposed to
supervised injection sites," said Heed, who attended the Ottawa
meeting and says the RCMP's agreement is not necessary before the
project moves forward. "What you'll see is they'll come out in support
of the fact that this is just one part of the continuum of care that
is needed and continue to advocate for those other parts, like more
treatment."

While Heed agrees more treatment facilities are needed, he said
Vancouver has to push ahead with the injection sites to combat the
open drug problem in the Downtown Eastside. More than three million
needles are distributed and exchanged in the city each year.

Heed believes four to five sites are needed, the majority in the
Downtown Eastside and at least one in the West End. He advocates an
18-month trial, but stresses police will have an "operation plan" to
prevent drug dealing or other crimes from occurring in the sites.

"Let's get these trials up and running and let's ensure that we have a
proper plan in place so some of the critics that are against it, and
keep throwing up these theories, are silenced."

A 24-year cop, Heed said he never imagined he'd been advocating for
supervised injection sites. "If you asked me 24 years ago, I would
have said absolutely not. But again, 24 years ago, the city did not
have the drug problems that is has today."

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the B.C. Centre for Excellence
in HIV/AIDS and the B.C. Centre for Disease Control are preparing a
proposal for the sites that's expected to be reviewed by Health Canada
early in the new year.

The sites, which Campbell expects to open in February or March, will
be the first of their kind in North America.