Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry

SAFE HAVEN FOR DRUG USERS POSES PROBLEM FOR REALTOR

The first home I bought was a fixer-upper in Cabbagetown, a former 
slum district in downtown Toronto. It overlooked an alley frequented 
by glue-sniffers. And it was a slow night when there wasn't a fight 
in the rooming house opposite.

My fellow homeowners and I, however, had a hard time getting city 
hall to show any interest, let alone take any action.

So I've a lot of sympathy for Vancouver realtor Amalia Liapis who, 
for two years, has owned a property on East Pender Street in 
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, close to the city's much-vaunted, 
safe-injection site, Insite, and closer still to a new needle exchange.

Liapis rents out the Chinatown building, for which she pays $25,000 
annually in taxes, as office space. But she has a hard time doing so 
because prospective tenants take one look at the alleys in back and 
see what I saw Tuesday - namely a bad drug scene.

A couple of aboriginal addicts (one who said she was 50 and another 
who said she was 21, but looked much younger) were smoking crack 
cocaine and heroin, respectively, with a half-dozen dealers hovering 
nearby. There were discarded syringes, other litter and human excrement.

For Liapis, who grew up in East Vancouver and has always loved 
Chinatown, it's been an ongoing problem.

"The people who conduct their business in the alley . . . continue to 
vandalize my building, litter garbage and needles all around my 
property, physically and verbally attack me and my staff, and are 
preventing me from leasing out the space," Liapis wrote in July last 
year to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Liapis said she thought the city's policy of providing a safe haven 
for those unlawful activities had created an environment where "these 
people can do whatever they want without fear of consequences."

Fast forward to May of this year, when Liapis complained about a blue 
box just metres from her building's back door. It was intended to 
keep used needles off the pavement, but seemed to be making matters worse.

Vancouver Medical Health Officer John Carsley wrote back to say the 
outdoor needle boxes had proved a success, offering "a convenient and 
always available option for safe-needle disposal when and where 
indoor disposal is not possible."

Liapis replied by questioning what research Carsley's office had to 
back up its claim. She told me she's still waiting for a reply.

Most of the addicts, she says, are not from here: "Out of 10 that I 
talk to in the back alleys, nine are not from Vancouver."

We have, in other words, imported much of our drug nightmare. "There 
are a lot of people making money and profiting from the users 
downtown, including the so-called non profit societies," Liapis added.

That's why Liapis and I both support the big drug and alcohol 
recovery rally in downtown Vancouver on Sept. 30 - which Robertson, 
to his credit, has proclaimed as Recovery Day.

Let's hope it heralds a whole new attitude toward addiction, with a 
critical mass of folks celebrating freedom from drugs, rather than 
government-enabled enslavement to them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom