[Vancouver Sun Editorial Introduction:
While many professionals endorse safe injection sites and clean needles for
drug addicts, other counsellors think a combination of jail and treatment
is the best answer]

ON PINS AND NEEDLES, 3 of 5

If anyone has a financial interest in maintaining our expensive and
obviously failed approach to the drug problem, it is the police. The
federal auditor general has pointed out that 95 per cent of the money that
Canadians spend on the drug problem is gobbled up by enforcement initiatives.

It is time to stop letting cops dictate our response to the drug problem in
Vancouver. The war on drugs has failed. It is time to take a sensible and
comprehensive approach that includes all four pillars, including harm
reduction. We need an approach like the one Mayor Philip Owen championed
and the one mayoral candidate Jennifer Clarke pays lip service to.

Andre Lachance

Vancouver