Pubdate: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2003 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Greg Joyce Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Vancouver (Vancouver) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange) VANCOUVER POLICE RELEASE VIDEO TO PUBLIC TO SUPPORT CRACKDOWN ON DRUG DEALERS VANCOUVER (CP) - Chances of the notorious Downtown Eastside becoming a tourist mecca anytime soon are slim, but its most drug-riddled section seems to looks better these days in a police video aimed at justifying a high-profile crackdown on dealers. As part of the continuing publicity campaign to gain public support for their efforts, the police department on Tuesday made available to the public a video of street life in the area shot prior to the crackdown. It's inviting people to visit the police Web site (www.vpd.ca) to see the difference. Critics of the crackdown, however, suggest the problem hasn't been fixed but simply shuffled around the neighborhood. The nine-minute video, entitled Picking up the Beat, was produced for the police department last spring to take to city council to illustrate the problem, police spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan said Tuesday. The video features street scenes before and after the crackdown, along with interviews with cops and grateful residents. That neighborhood's problem was readily evident to anyone walking or driving through the area. At the corner of Main and Hastings, one of the roughest areas in Canada, dozens of dealers and customers participated openly in a daily drug bazaar, buying and selling crack and heroin with impunity. Down any alley many people could be seen injecting heroin or cocaine, oblivious to anything around them. Besides the open drug dealing and use, the video shows several night-time assaults of the kind police say have made local residents fearful of walking the streets.. The department wanted more funding to beef up police presence in the area, said Drennan. The drug circus at Main and Hastings now has all but disappeared, as a time-lapse sequence in the video showing one part of the street suggests. Police say the dealers have been displaced to other areas although they're not certain of where. Others who live and work in the area say the dealers are only moving around, trying to stay a step ahead of the police. Drennan said the dealers have not gone to the suburbs, but to other areas in Vancouver and may even had moved to other cities. "There's no question that some of that has taken place," said Drennan. "What is interesting is the amount of displacement that has taken place isn't nearly equal to the number of dealers that were formerly working in the Downtown Eastside. So where these other dealers have gone we don't know." Ann Livingston, project co-ordinator for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, is highly critical of the crackdown because she said enforcement without accompanying treatment is not the answer. "The same number of dealers are there," said Livingston, who lives in the area. "They've moved to other areas (in the Downtown Eastside)." The dealers, like the cops, have increased their numbers as well, she said, adding more drug "packers" and "lookouts" to watch for the increased police presence. A safe-injection site for the area has been approved by Health Canada - - the first in the country - but has not opened yet and Livingston said that should have come first. "If you have a crackdown and then open a safe injection site, how are you going to get (the addicts) to come?" she said. Kim Kerr, executive-director of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, concedes that residents of the area are happy about the enforcement. But like Livingston, he said enforcement without proper treatment is insufficient. City council many months ago proposed a so-called four-pillar approach to the drug problem, involving enforcement, treatment, prevention and harm reduction. Kerr said the enforcement aspect is evident now but there is not enough of the other three. He also says that the dealers haven't moved away; they've just moved around the area. "The dealers are being herded around the neighbourhood," he said. Still, Drennan believes the police had to do something out of concern for the thousands of area residents not involved in the drug trade. "We had finally reached the point where we realized we had to do something and now." Police have asked city council for more funding to continue their crackdown, but a decision isn't likely until the fall, after council considers an independent evaluation of the current enforcement effort, said Drennan. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin