METH DISPENSARY LICENCE FEES WILL SOAR

Surrey will now charge stand-alone methadone dispenaries $10,000 per year
for an annual business licence, representing a 5,000 per cent increase.

Surrey council voted nearly unanimously in favour of the hikes on Monday,
with only Coun. Bob Bose dissenting.

"It's punitive," Bose said Tuesday. "... what Surrey is doing is committing
addicts to life of dependency - and I think that's morally indefensible."

Coun. Dianne Watts said the bylaw isn't designed to limit access to
methadone, but crafted to address public safety issues by reducing the
concentration of methadone dispensaries in an area of Whalley.

Watts says many of the people coming to the pharmacies are dually addicted,
and while the methadone helps with the heroin addiciton, clients are still
using cocaine, crack or methamphetamine.

With all those active addictions concentrated in one area, crime also rises.

"Eighty per cent of crime is drug-related," says Watts, who also chairs the
city's public safety committee.

If most pharmacies in Surrey took a few methadone patients, those problems
would be significantly minimized, she maintains.