SAFE-INJECTION SITES NOT SUPPORTED FOR THE CITY

Safe injection sites may be okay in some cities, but not in Richmond, says
a member of the team appointed to draft Richmond's drug strategy initiative.

"It's not something we can support as RCMP," said Cpl. Davis Wendell in his
presentation to the Richmond school district's education committee meeting
Monday night. "But we're more than prepared to support people on their
journey towards abstinence."

This journey, as laid out by Wendell, a member of a community team
appointed to devise a drug strategy for Richmond by year's end, will
include drafting of a concrete, hands-on plan to battle the problem of
illegal drugs in this community.

Although safe injection sites probably won't form part of the strategy,
other harm reduction programs are already in place and working well.

The local methadone program, said Wendell, is currently serving 60 clients,
all former heroin addicts, and the needle exchange program hasn't resulted
to-date in any additional policing headaches.

But the key to a successful drug strategy, said Wendell, is to help people
make life choices that mean they'll never have to kick the drug habit.

At the schoolyard level, that means developing more comprehensive drug
awareness programs in schools as well as placing a school liaison officer
in every high school instead of employing only one district-wide.

The idea received nods of approval from the students themselves who sit as
members of the school district's education committee.

Christine McCreary, a Grade 12 student at Charles E. London secondary, said
it's socially acceptable at school to smoke marijuana. This tacit approval
sees kids in Grade 8 smoking pot, but by Grade 12, they're using cocaine.

The socially acceptable status of marijuana, said Wendell, seems to be a
made-in-B.C. standard. In this province, he said, attitudes towards drugs
are flexible, leading most to classify pot as not as evil as, say, heroin.
But, he stressed to committee members, marijuana is classified as a gateway
drug - its smoking leads to experimentation and addiction to harder illicit
substances.

At the school district level, Wendell said the goal of Richmond's drug
strategy will be to ensure kids who choose to remain drug-free can feel
safe in their scholastic environment.

"We want to ensure schools are places where kids who don't do drugs never
feel pressure to do them," he said.