MAYOR ADDRESSES VANCOUVER'S DRUG PROBLEM

BCCN recently spoke with Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen, who attends St.
John's Shaughnessy Anglican Church, about various proposals for
dealing with the city's drug problems.

BCCN: You've been quoted as saying that the city hasn't moved fast
enough on the drug issue. What is your response to First United
Church's proposal to open a temporary safe injection site?

Owen: Well, I don't think you can talk about just safe injection
sites. Have you read our 86-page document on a framework for action
- -- the 'four-pillar' approach? Well, there's 37 action plans there,
there's probably 28 things you have to do, and safe injection sites
is maybe number 23. . . . [Safe injection sites] are successful in
England and in Holland and Switzerland and particularly in Germany,
and the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Australia was here, and they're
successful, but you need a whole bunch of things. A holistic
approach, a continuum of care.

We've got four pillars: prevention, treatment, enforcement, harm
reduction. Each one's got a whole bunch of actions that need to take
place. You need to try and get people that are on heroin and drug use
off completely, abstinence-based, or you need to get them on
substitution, like methadone. You need to get the drug pushers and
dealers and enforce them, and put them in jail. They're murdering
people. Deport them if they're not Canadian citizens . . .

We've just opened a drug treatment court a few weeks ago, and you
need it all. You need everything, so it's all or nothing. For First
United Church to just open a safe injection site without it fitting
into an overall strategy and plan, to do it without co-ordination
with other activities that need to take place, I think is wrong. If
you spend your effort and energy as a church teaching the gospel and
trying to convert people and stimulate their spiritual lives, that's
probably the first thing they should be doing. I just don't think you
can isolate any one of the many things we're recommending in the
86-page document we've produced.

BCCN: Last year at this time we ran a story profiling the overall
plan. It's true at that time we did focus more on the harm reduction
issue because it tends to be the more controversial issue. Since it
is a church that has said they would open this site, and since in
Australia and other countries it has been said that it was faith
communities opening sites and prodding governments to act that
brought these things into existence, has First United's action
actually pushed the city at all?

Owen: No, they should fit into the overall solution [not] jumping out
front of the program . . .

The safe injection site issue is something that is working. It's a
means of opening the door for drug addicts into treatment because you
have some contact with them. They do it in a clean, safe environment,
supervised and you also get to know those people. Because now they're
in the lane, busy doing their thing. The idea of the centre is a
bridge into treatment, that's what it is. . . . It shouldn't be held
in a vacuum. For hard-core addicts that you're trying to
rehabilitate, if you can have them into a facility where there's some
. . . cleanliness and safety and have contact with them, know who
they are and where they live and what their needs are, it'll in a lot
of cases prove to be an entree into abstinence-based treatment,
renewal, turning their lives around.

The hard line people say 'well, let's incarcerate them all.' Well,
that doesn't work, there's no place in the world they're throwing
everybody into jail. You can't just go handing out free cocaine and
heroin to everybody; you can't ignore it, so you've got to manage it
. . .

I just got a call from Maple Ridge, and they've got an epidemic out
there. They say it's all in Vancouver, which is wrong, it's all over,
in every city in the entire world. The mayor of Yokohama tells me a
year ago that the worst problem they have is heroin and cocaine.
What's he doing about it? Well, he says 'we're not doing anything, we
don't know what to do about it.'

We're finally doing something. So please participate in the
activities which the experts say are going to start to solve this
problem and help the people in need . . .

BCCN: Is the general observation of city council that the church at
large would be against [the city's plan]?

Owen: A lot of churches are. But a lot of other churches that are
understanding of it are saying, like I said, that you can't
incarcerate your way out, you can't legalize your way out, you can't
ignore it, so I think the right thing from a spiritual point of view
is to help these people. If you recognize that the user is sick, and
the dealer is evil, then you can start to accept reality. But if
you're going to be blanket about it in a basic fundamentalist way
from any spiritual dimension, I think fundamentalism is basically
very dangerous. It's very, very narrow thinking that doesn't allow
for negotiation or compromise or compassion, or understanding of a
very difficult situation.

BCCN: What is the role of other levels of government in getting all
of these steps in motion? I understand some things have already taken
place in the last year, but what are we waiting on?

Owen: We're waiting on the public to get onside, and they're onside,
and we have to move slowly on it. You've got to move the politicians,
you've got to move the public, the social service agencies, the
caregivers, and those that are funding all these things in a unified
way because there's a lack of understanding of narcotics and this
terrible decay, all the property crime and theft that goes along with
it. You've got to move slowly. We've moved faster than anybody else,
we're recognized as sort of leading in this area. We've got
tremendous broad public support. I think it's because it's so complex
that you've got to try and educate people. It takes a little time to
read an 86-page document and understand it.

We say to the people that are critical, don't pick one issue out. And
if you don't like our 86-page document, where's your 86-page document
on what we ought to do about it? Nobody's produced one. Nobody. So,
the public is telling us 'you're on the right course, just keep going
and don't go too slow and don't go too fast, but move in a direction
of renewal and change and understanding', and that's what we're doing
. . .

You've got to go and get funding, you've got to get the government,
you've got to have a public process, you've got to go through a
permitting process, they've got to have licenses, you've got to
physically find a location, financing and the renovations. You don't
snap your fingers and do that overnight, and we only passed the
document last May. We're moving as fast as we possibly can and faster
than anybody else. The federal government and the provincial
government are very, very supportive of what we're doing.

BCCN: I understand that you regularly walk through the downtown
eastside. What inspires you to do this?

Owen: I think that I'm elected to understand and work with all the
citizens, and there's a lot of hurting citizens that are in trouble.
If you want to get down to the fundamentals of it, if you read the
scriptures, that's what Jesus did. He walks amongst the poor and
helps the poor and helps those in need. There's a lot of people down
there in need and I'm there trying to help.