"THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS"

Mayor Philip Owen unveils today his sweeping plan for city's drug crisis

Safe-injection sites for drug users and providing free heroin for hard-core
addicts on a trial basis are among the strategies the city of Vancouver is
recommending in a new drug policy that is the first of its kind in North
America.

The plan, to be made public today, also includes drug courts that would put
users into treatment instead of jail, special treatment beds for young
people, day centres for drug users outside the Downtown Eastside, testing
of street drugs to help prevent overdoses, and more police to target
upper-level drug dealers.

The plan is the city's response to what Mayor Philip Owen calls an
unprecedented drug crisis in which people are dying by the hundreds, while
many more are getting hepatitis C and HIV through intravenous-injection
drug use.

``These trends must stop,'' Owen said. ``We cannot ignore this issue. We
cannot incarcerate our way out of it and we cannot liberalize our way out
of it. This is an international crisis that is scaring an awful lot of
cities.''

Added the mayor: ``Doing nothing is not an option. What we've been doing so
far is not working.''

The report accompanying the recommendations notes that Vancouver spends
more money per person on dealing with illicit drugs than any other place in
Canada.

In 1997, the estimated direct costs of law enforcement and health care
related to drug use was $96 million a year.

The new plan, a copy of which was obtained by The Vancouver Sun, contains
24 recommendations intended to emphasize equally strategies for prevention,
treatment, legal enforcement, and harm reduction, a strategy used in some
European cities that is known as the four-pillar approach.

Like European cities that pioneered it, Vancouver is also taking the
position that it has to act even if others are not willing to yet. And,
like them, it is also clearly shifting to a position that says drug
addiction is a health issue, not a criminal issue.

The plan does not commit the city to spending any money or to undertaking
any immediate, controversial action.

All but two of the recommendations are labelled as the responsibility of
other agencies: the federal and provincial governments, the
Vancouver/Richmond health board and the Vancouver police department.

The report restricts city actions to creating a ``Drug Action Team'' to
coordinate responses to neighbourhood drug issues, and to supporting some
kind of process that improves local neighbourhoods' ability to fight back
against drug problems.

But Owen said the city already spends $10 million a year on programs meant
to deal with the drug issue, such as housing and service centres in the
Downtown Eastside. As well, he said, the federal and provincial
governments, which have the money and authority to actually do something,
are looking to the city for leadership and a plan that they can throw
themselves behind.

``The onus is on us to deliver that to them,'' said Owen.

The policy is only a draft so far. It will be circulated to the public for
comment until the end of January, with the final report, reflecting public
reaction, due in the spring.

But the policy, which sets out a multi-pronged approach that contains some
elements that are relatively radical for mainstream politicians, is sure to
draw both praise and fire from all sides.

Some will say it caters to drug users and perpetuates the problems by
suggesting the city consider safe injection sites, a heroin-maintenance
experiment, and clinical trials for other medications that could substitute
for heroin and cocaine.

Others will say the city has backed away from doing anything concrete to
start tackling the problem immediately and has caved in to conservative
forces by recommending drug courts.

Owen says that, while public reaction is important, the city will not agree
to a final strategy that doesn't have all four pillars in place.

``We're going to be very open, but we're not going to go without the
holistic, comprehensive approach. It's going to be controversial, but
there's no turning back.''

Owen said other cities are looking to Vancouver for leadership.

``Everyone has a drug problem, all the big-city mayors have talked about
this. Every single one is looking for solutions. But nobody is prepared to
stand up to the plate.''

Vancouver's problems have been highlighted because the drug scene is so
open, Owen said, but everyone is struggling.

Owen said he's already been contacted by the mayors of Yokohama and Seattle
for a copy of Vancouver's drug strategy.

``We see it all around the Pacific Rim. As soon as you get a prosperous
economy, the drug dealers move in.''

VANCOUVER'S DRUG STRATEGY AND HARM REDUCTION PLAN

The city's four goals with its drug strategy:

- - Push the federal and provincial governments to act.

- - Restore public order, particularly at Main and Hastings.

- - Tackle the drug-related health crisis.

- - Establish a single co-ordinator who can pull everyone together to get
things done

Its 24 recommendations:

ENFORCEMENT

- - Increase police drug and organized-crime squads to target mid- and
upper-level dealers

- - Start a senior-level ``drug action team'' to co-ordinate response to
neighbourhood drug issues

- - Start a pilot drug treatment court with a range of options for treatment

- - Look for legal changes that would help police and courts go after new
trends in the drug industry, like dial a dope, public drug consumption, and
youth prostitution

- - Redeploy police officers in the Downtown Eastside to increase their
visibility in the neighbourhood

HARM REDUCTION

- - Provide short-term shelter and housing options for active drug users on
the street

- - Set up a task force to look at the possibility of a scientific, medical
project to develop safe injection sites

- - Set up street-drug testing so that people can get quick information about
changes in quality in order to prevent drug overdoses

- - Start an overdose-death prevention campaign

TREATMENT

- - Start a 15-bed treatment unit just for women, women with children, and
pregnant women

- - Set up 20 treatment beds for young people outside the Downtown Eastside

- - Expand support services for families of children who become users

- - Set up six medical detox beds at St. Paul's for those with serious
medical problems

- - Take steps to start clinical trials of drugs like buprenorphine as
possible substitutes for heroin and cocaine addiction, to increase the
options for treatment for people who are methadone resistant

- - Proceed with the proposed North American research trial into giving
heroin to hard-core addicts

- - Put needle exchanges into all primary health care clinics, hospitals,
pharmacies and relevant non-profit group sites in the region

- - Make methadone easier to get, expanding it by 1,000 clients in the next
two years

- - Provide different kinds of housing for users and people trying to go clean

- - Pilot day centres for addicts outside the Downtown Eastside to help
prevent users, especially young people, from getting involved in the
inner-city drug scene

PREVENTION

- - Start a community process that gives neighbourhoods more power to combat
drug abuse

- - Develop a pilot citywide school curriculum on drugs and drug abuse

There are also three recommendations urging provincial ministries, the
provincial government and the federal government to act in the areas they
control.