B.C. coroner accuses Ottawa of buckpassing on heroin plea: He sees it as
another example of the federal government's indifference to B.C. problems.

By: Gary Engler

OTTAWA Federal buckpassing over the treatment of heroin addiction
is another example of Ottawa's indifference to B.C. problems,
provincial chief coroner Larry Campbell charged Tuesday.

``I find the federal health minister saying it's a legal problem and
the justice minister saying it's a health problem,'' Campbell said in
response to a story in Tuesday editions of The Vancouver Sun. ``I find
it very disheartening.''

Neither Health Minister Allan Rock, from Ontario, nor Justice Minister
Anne McLellan, from Alberta, would discuss the issue Monday. Both said
it is the responsibility of the other.

``Three hundred people died in British Columbia last year from heroin
overdoses and I have no idea of the number of people who died as a
result of sharing needlesHIV infections,'' Campbell said Tuesday. He
noted that the current cost of treating an HIVinfected person is
about $150,000 per year.

``If the health minister doesn't think that's a problem, then we all
are in trouble,'' he said. ``I don't want to be parochial, but I can
tell you something, if there were 300 people [dying per year] and an
AIDS epidemic somewhere other than Vancouver, we would be seeing
action.

``My response to them is if you can't handle it, then give it to us
and let us treat it as a British Columbia local problem, but make up
your mind. While you're doing this, people are dying.''

The issue was put to Rock and McLellan on Monday after Swiss voters,
in a weekend referendum, endorsed their government's liberal drug
policies.

When told that Switzerland is going to put state distribution of
heroin on a permanent legal footing, Rock responded: ``Here it's an
issue of whether the justice department will amend the Criminal
Code.''

When McLellan heard that, she replied: ``I'm afraid that actually it's
a health issue. I don't mean to disagree with my colleague, the
minister of health, but it is a health issue and obviously it would be
possible, as a matter of fact, to change laws or amend laws, but one
would only do that as a recommendation of the minister involved,
because this is a health issue, not a justice issue, per se.''

Campbell has been B.C.'s chief coroner since last December and was
Vancouver coroner for16 years. His predecessor as B.C. coroner was
Vince Cain, who produced a report inquiring into the massive increase
in heroinoverdose deaths. Among its recommendations was
decriminalization of simple possession of hard and soft drugs; that
addicts be dealt with through a medical, rather than a criminal model;
and that heroin should possibly be provided to seriously addicted
people. He also recommended tougher sentences for trafficking.

``I support the Cain report,'' said Campbell. ``I believe this is a
medical problem that we've made into a criminal problem and if these
two people who sit together in the House can't sit down and come to a
decision on where they're going to go on that, I fear for any other
decision that may be made.

``They don't have the guts to address it, that's what the whole
problem is. They don't see it as being in their back yard. They don't
see it as being their problem. Well, when it's costing you billions of
dollars a year, it's your problem.''

Campbell's comments come in the wake of controversial remarks make
last week by B.C. Senator Patricia Carney, who ripped into the eastern
political and media establishment for ignoring B.C. issues.