REMARKS RILE VANDU

Two candidates seeking Vancouver city-council nominations with the
Non-Partisan Association have told the Straight that they have serious
concerns about a safe-injection site being built on the Downtown Eastside.
Vern Campbell, a former Vancouver police superintendent, and Janet Leduc,
president of Heritage Vancouver, both made the remarks on June 4 shortly
before they announced they would seek NPA nominations for city council.

Campbell told the Straight that he supports a multifaceted approach for
dealing with drug addiction but worries that too many services are
concentrated in the Downtown Eastside. "I think that in terms of
safe-injection sites, one of the problems with those is if you put one,
say, in the Downtown Eastside, it becomes a predatory zone," Campbell said.
"Other drug addicts and criminals know that everybody who is walking into
that place or towards that place has got drugs. So they become, once
againSthe victims of society."

When asked if a safe-injection site should be in the area, Campbell said:
"I don't think that's a place to put it."

Leduc told the Straight that she wants more treatment centres, better
enforcement, and better prevention programs in place before the development
of safe-injection sites. (The NPA- controlled city council recently
unanimously endorsed a multicity pilot program with Health Canada to carry
out a scientific trial of safe-injection sites; council's resolution noted
that the trial would be one part of an integrated
treatment-and-law-enforcement scheme.)

Leduc, a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade's Downtown Eastside task
force, said the city desperately needs treatment centres, especially for
young people. "In any other city where they brought in safe-injection
sites, they had all the other pieces in place first," she said.

She also said that safe-injection facilities should be located in other
parts of the city, the region, and the province, and not just in one
neighbourhood. "There shouldn't be one safe-injection site located in the
Downtown Eastside," she emphasized.

When asked which neighbourhoods should get safe-fixing sites, she said: "I
haven't looked into that. I don't think too many areas of the city would
want that in their neighbourhood."

Dean Wilson, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, told
the Straight that he was "dumbfounded" by the candidates' comments. Wilson
pointed out that the NPA-dominated council already approved the pilot
program with Health Canada, and he claimed that it's "ridiculous" not to
put a safe-injection site where there is the greatest number of addicts. "I
just can't believe they would suggest any other place than the Downtown
Eastside," Wilson said.

Meanwhile, Campbell also claimed that police aren't arresting people for
possession of narcotics. "The big problem right now, I guess, is the
federal Crown counsel will not prosecute simple possession charges," he
said. He added that drug courts might be one way to deal with this.