Pubdate: Thu, 09 Oct 2008
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Suzanne Fournier
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?216 (CN Police)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

RCMP TACTICS UNDER FIRE

Police Accused Of Trying To Sway Public Opinion

Vancouver's Pivot Legal Society is demanding the federal
auditor-general investigate the RCMP's role in trying to negatively
skew public and political perceptions of Vancouver's Insite
supervised-injection facility.

Armed with six internal e-mails showing the RCMP paid for two negative
studies and then tried to obscure its own role in the research, Pivot
lawyer Doug King also yesterday revealed a deliberate RCMP bid to
influence a CBC show by asking police officers to call in with
criticisms of Insite.

The e-mails also show RCMP tried to influence Conservative MPs to
shift away from harm reduction as a drug strategy.

King pointed out that federal Health Minister Tony Clement has
repeatedly cited the RCMP research as evidence the largely positive
peer-reviewed research on Insite was wrong.

"The RCMP are supposed to be acting as peace officers for the citizens
of Canada, and we think it is an abuse of public funds for the RCMP to
fund a cynical critique of health-based research," King said.

In one e-mail exchange, former RCMP Const. Chuck Doucette of "E"
division in B.C. reported to his superiors that one of the studies
"has now been published . . . as per our request, the report has no
reference to the RCMP." The RCMP-backed studies commissioned in 2006,
one by Colin Mangham, director of the Drug Prevention Network of
Canada, and the other by Simon Fraser University criminologist Garth
Davies, are at odds with more than 20 academic studies that found
Insite has cut back drug-overdose deaths and checked soaring HIV rates
in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

In May 2008, Doucette advised 17 e-mail recipients, including
Vancouver police, RCMP and the author of one of the studies, to swamp
CKNW's Bill Good with negative calls about Insite.

In another e-mail, RCMP Insp. Lise Crouch, in charge of the RCMP Drugs
and Organized Crime Awareness Service, says that RCMP lobbying seemed
to be working: "The MPs that spoke to us at our meeting indicated that
was the direction they wanted to go in." Yesterday, RCMP Const. Annie
Linteau, spokeswoman for E division, said she hadn't seen the e-mails
but insisted "it's not unusual for us to do research on a semi-regular
basis." "We're not academic re-searchers. We're not scientists. We
rely on outside experts quite often. We hire and consult with people
to conduct research for us." Linteau said it was just coincidental
that the RCMP-funded research was negative toward Insite, "although we
do not support the legalization of any criminally illicit substance or
anything that encourages its use."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin