CITY'S POINT MAN ON DRUGS A WINNER

City Drug Policy Coordinator Donald MacPherson has won a national
award for his efforts to improve the lives of drug users.

The Kaiser Award for Excellence recognizes people and groups who
promote physical and mental health through drug harm reduction
methods. MacPherson, who was responsible for drafting the city's Four
Pillar drug policy, won in the Public Policy category.

"It's such a dire situation that sometimes it's nice to get the
recognition that something positive is happening," he said.

The Four Pillar approach MacPherson championed focuses on harm
reduction, prevention, treatment and enforcement, and many of the
policy's measures have been credited with saving lives in the
Downtown Eastside.

Those measures include Insite, the supervised injection site; the
North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI), which provides
heroin addicts with free prescribed heroin; and the city's recent
Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment (CAST) program, which will
provide legal prescription drug substitutes to crack cocaine and
crystal meth users.

"I think generally people like the idea of the Four Pillars,"
MacPherson said. "They'd just like to see more funding and more
variety in the types of programs available."

Since 2001, when the Four Pillars policy was adopted, MacPherson has
seen a change in how people view drug policy.

"I think most people get it, they understand that you need both a
robust health approach as well as a very coordinated enforcement
approach to the illegal side of things," he said.

In 2005, MacPherson authored a report suggesting non-addictive
psychoactive drugs such as peyote and magic mushrooms could be used
to treat hardcore drug addictions.

MacPherson says the report likely would not and could not have been
written 10 years earlier-evidence that public opinion has shifted to
more progressive and open-minded solutions to drug abuse. He hopes
the award will spark other cities' interest in a Four Pillar approach
to drug problems.

Winners of the award receive a $10,000 grant to be given to the
charity of their choice.