Pubdate: Thu, 06 Nov 2003
Source: Mirror (CN QU)
Copyright: 2003 Communications Gratte-Ciel Ltee
Contact:  http://www.montrealmirror.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/267
Author: Patrick Lejtenyi

FIXING ADDICTION

As Mayor Of Vancouver, Philip Owen Spearheaded A Major Change In Drug 
Treatment Policies. It Cost Him His Job, But, As Revealed In A New 
Documentary, It Also Changed Canadian Cities' Approach To The Problem

Vancouver, as depicted in Nettie Wild's 2002 documentary Fix: the Story of 
an Addicted City, is a far cry from the pristine Pacific pearl it markets 
itself as abroad. An estimated 4,000 crack and heroin addicts roam its 
Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, strung out, filthy, desperate and, until 
recently, voiceless. That changed in the late 1990s, with the formation of 
the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), an addict-based advocacy 
group at the centre of Wild's film. The addicts found a sympathetic ear in 
an unlikely place: the city's otherwise conservative, business-friendly 
mayor Philip Owen.

Elected in 1993, Owen presided over the surging drug use and explosion of 
the addict population in the heart of Vancouver's downtown, a phenomenon he 
blames on waves of crack - and guns - shipped in from the States. By 1996, 
convinced that an American-style war on drugs was futile, he decided to 
re-think the city's drug policy. By 2001, his Four Pillars drug policy - 
consisting of prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction - was 
adopted, albeit grudgingly, by city council. As a result, however, Owen was 
forced out of office by his own party in February 2002. The following 
November, he watched by the sidelines as they were crushed in the municipal 
elections, in large part due to their resistance to his popular policy. 
Owen today is a vigorous advocate of progressive drug policies, and will be 
in Montreal on Nov. 10, to discuss the film and take part in a series of 
community forums. The Mirror spoke to Owen over the phone from his 
Vancouver home.

Mirror: When did you start getting closer to the Downtown Eastside addicts?

Philip Owen: It became clear to me that you couldn't incarcerate your way 
out of this problem, because the war on drugs doesn't work. I learned that 
at a conference I attended in Stanford in 1995. You can't legalize your way 
out of it, you can't ignore it, so you manage it. And in order to manage 
it, you have to know what you're managing. I felt it was my job to get as 
close to the issue as possible and the only way was to go to the area and 
talk to the people involved, and that's what I did.

So they started to trust me and tell me all sorts of things, and I had 
several afternoon tea parties. I'd get the needle exchange people to gather 
up 10 or 15 of the hardest-core drug users and we'd take over a little 
restaurant between 2 and 5 o'clock. You'd listen to these kids, between 15 
and 25, and they'd tell me what their problems are.

I just got tremendous trust. And I told Ottawa that we'd deliver them a 
bottom-up, street-oriented, citizen-managed, citizen-controlled, 
citizen-input solution. But the whole thing is public health and public 
order, and if you're the mayor of a city you're elected to represent all 
the citizens. That's what I felt was appropriate and that was part of my 
job. And I enjoyed it.

Impotent Cities

M: What was going through your mind when you were seeing this problem grow 
in the mid-'90s?

PO: Well, that we had to do something with it. These people are dying. 
They're addicted. We deal with everything other kind of addiction, why 
don't we deal with this addiction? You don't throw everybody else in jail 
because they're addicted, so let's get real here. Let's not get involved in 
all sorts of hard-nosed theory stuff that doesn't work and the war on 
drugs, which has failed. Prohibition does nothing except create crime. 
These people are sick. And if they're sick, let's treat them as a sick 
person. And let the law enforcement officers go after the dealers and the 
pushers.

M: Did you focus on that when you were mayor?

PO: Well, what can we at the city do? The Port Corporation's a federal 
government operation. In Montreal, there's a million containers a year 
going through the port there, and you can put all the cocaine used in 
Canada in a year in about half of one of those containers. But what can the 
mayor of Montreal do? Not much. That's federal property, and it's highly 
unionized and there's an awful lot of unsavoury characters operating there.

So, fine, federal government can carry on with stopping the flow of the 
goods in, same with George W. Bush. He says we're going to stop the product 
coming into the United States, and it's ridiculous. It's just bizarre. His 
scorched-earth policy of eradication in Colombia hasn't worked and hasn't 
stopped the flow of cocaine and heroin coming into the United States and 
from the U.S. up into Canada.

But I think Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver are far and away the most 
progressive cities when it comes to treating drug addiction.

No Panaceas

M: What other initiatives did you, as mayor, implement?

PO: We have the four-pillar approach. There's prevention, treatment, 
enforcement and harm reduction. One of the 20 things in harm reduction is 
safe injection sites. You need methadone, you need drug courts, you need 
safe injection sites, a whole bunch of health services and contact centres 
and care facilities. You need sobering centres, you need detox, 
rehabilitation and counselling - we've got a contact centre in downtown 
Vancouver, where the people that are really hurting can go and get off the 
street, we've got a life-skill centre, where they can go and learn how to 
apply for a job and look after their bank account. There's a dental school, 
where students go down several nights a week and addicts can get dental 
hygiene. One of the worst things when applying for a job or looking for an 
apartment is having terrible breath and your teeth are all broken.

The list goes on and on. There's safe injection sites, and 37 other 
[aspects]. On their own the sites won't do anything.

Fix: the Story of an Addicted City screens at the Cinema du Parc from 
Friday, Nov. 7 to Thursday, Nov. 13. Community forums with Owen, filmmaker 
Nettie Wild and members of VANDU will take place after selected showings. 
Consult repertory listings for screenings and visit 
www.canadawildproductions.com for community forum times 
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MAP posted-by: Perry Stripling