Pubdate: Thu, 02 Feb 2017
Source: Georgia Straight, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 The Georgia Straight
Contact:  http://www.straight.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1084
Author: Travis Lupck
Page: 13
Cited: VANDU: http://www.vandu.org/
Cited: Canadian Drug Policy Coalition: http://drugpolicy.ca/

DRUG RESPONDERS MEET PM

Last Sunday (January 29), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice
Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould sat down in Vancouver with a roomful of
people on the frontlines of B.C.'S fentanyl crisis.

Trudeau, who was in Vancouver for the Chinese New Year parade,
attended the morning meeting at SUCCESS'S Pender Street offices in
Chinatown. There were about a dozen stakeholders there for the private
meeting at the social-services agency, including Vancouver's police
and fire chiefs. Three points were repeated by just about everyone in
attendance, according to interviews with five of those people.

The first was a call for Ottawa to declare a federal health emergency.
The second was a request for funding for addictions treatment. The
third, for the Canadian government to consider the pros and cons of
the full legalization and regulation of hard drugs like heroin and
cocaine.

Coco Culbertson is a programs manager with the Portland Hotel Society,
which runs Vancouver's supervised-injection facility, Insite, and 15
social-housing projects in the Downtown Eastside.

"Everyone brought up full legalization," she said. And the prime
minister's response?

"His reaction was that it made common sense, but that creating a
policy that reflects common sense, especially around drug-policy
reform, is far more complicated than he anticipated," Culbertson
recounted. "To legalize and regulate marijuana, I think he has been
surprised by how difficult it has been."

She said Trudeau's reaction was not encouraging but left open the
possibility of further dialogue down the road.

"I don't think that this discussion is over with him," Culbertson
continued. "I think he heard us very loud and clear. And if he is given a

second mandate by the voters of the country, then we could have an
opportunity to take it up then."

Donald MacPherson is executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy
Coalition and a former drug-policy coordinator for the City of
Vancouver. He told the Straight that regardless of Trudeau's actual
thoughts on the legalization of hard drugs, the prime minister made it
clear that an end to prohibition is simply not politically viable.

"In the context of what's happening now with [legalizing] cannabis,
the sense I got was, 'One step at a time, folks.' "

Lori Shaver, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users
(VANDU), told the Straight she left the room with a negative view on
the meeting. "The main thing that I pressed is that we need to have
legalization," she began. "And he tried to shut it right down.

"He said that he's had such a hard time with the marijuana, that with
heroin it would be even worse. But legalization is what has to be done."

(Legalization involves bringing the supply of narcotics under
government control and heavily regulating their distribution and sale.
Decriminalization simply removes judicial penalties

for possessing drugs, leaving supply in the hands of criminals who
might cut drugs like heroin with even more dangerous substances such
as fentanyl.)

Also in the room with the prime minister were Thomas Kerr, a lead
researcher with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Portland
Hotel Society executive director Jennifer Breakspear, and Sue
Ouelette, a frontline responder who works at one of the city's new
injection sites.

Trudeau reportedly made no commitment to any policy during the
meeting. The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to a request for
comment.

Last year 914 people died of an illicit-drug overdose in B.C. The
synthetic opioid fentanyl was associated with 60 percent of those deaths.

Other key points those stakeholders were in agreement on were the need
for the declaration of a federal health emergency and for more funding
required for treatment options.

"The entire room wanted a national emergency or a national crisis
proclaimed," Culbertson said. "If we are not talking about it on a
national level, as a national emergency, then the drug users' lives
are not equal to other lives that are lost."
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