BC: Open Drug Use, Sales End

[motorhead]

CN BC: Open Drug Use, Sales End
by Matthew Ramsey, (22 Feb 2006) Province British Columbia
Skeptics Say Crackdown Will Simply Relocate Addicts

Vancouver police say they will no longer turn a blind eye to addicts and dealers who use and sell drugs in plain view on the city's streets.

"This behaviour is not OK . . . [They] will be charged," Insp. Bob Rolls, commander of the northeast district of the city, said yesterday.

The new enhanced enforcement builds on a November 2005 initiative that saw police sweep the streets and alleys around the Hastings Street safe-injection site looking for addicts shooting up in public. Thirteen people were arrested and charged.

Under the new program, five people were picked up between Friday and yesterday.

Rolls said blatant drug use contributes to public disorder, fear of going near some areas of the city ( particularly the Downtown Eastside ), harms business and is disturbingly unique to Vancouver.

"This behaviour doesn't happen in other cities," Rolls said. "The reason is simple: There's simply no deterrence or consequences for this behaviour [here]. We're going to be laying quite a number of charges before we see a change in behaviour."

Rolls said police have met with federal Crown prosecutors and are working to have charges approved in as many cases as possible, and area restrictions ( no-go zones ) imposed on those convicted.

Police will take a zero-tolerance attitude to anyone caught with drugs in parks or on school grounds, he said.

For the past decade, Vancouver police have complained of inadequate tools to effectively attack the drug trade, Rolls said. In the Downtown Eastside, he said, users and dealers scatter when police arrive, only to return once police leave the vicinity.

The primary objective of the city's Four Pillars program -- to treat addiction as a health, not a criminal, issue -- has had "unanticipated consequences," Rolls said.

"There seems to be an increasing sense of empowerment or entitlement [for users to inject and smoke freely].

"Harm reduction has to be for the whole community. It can't be just for the drug user."

Enhanced enforcement will go on indefinitely and apply "anywhere in the city," he said.

All cases will be tracked electronically to see where they end up in the court system.

Bob Prior, director of the Crown prosecution service in B.C., confirmed that police have met with officials in his office, but noted the same test will apply as it does in all federal cases: A reasonable prospect of conviction exists and it's in the public interest to proceed.

"The vast majority of times we decide not to prosecute, the case simply isn't there," Prior said. "It's in no one's interest to take a case forward if we're going to lose."

There is also significant skepticism about whether the police initiative will do much more than shift addicts from one desperate area to another.

Ann Livingston, executive program director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said that what's needed is not to round up junkies and toss them in jail at an annual cost $82,000 each, but to provide them with more safe places to smoke and inject.

Livingston called the police initiative a "complete and blatant disregard" for the Four Pillars principles.

"It's the most regressive thing I've seen -- it's pretty pathetic," she said, noting that many of the estimated 5,000 addicts in the Downtown Eastside are mentally ill and homeless.

"They don't have homes. They don't have anywhere to go to use these drugs," she said.

Defence lawyer Jeremy Guild is equally skeptical.

"My experience is that [police] can arrest people, but what's happened is that all it's done is move the problem from one area to another," Guild said. "How that will result in a decrease in crime, I don't know."

Guild argued that pushing addicts indoors may ultimately be more dangerous since they will no longer be exposed to the harsh light of day and eyes of the public.

Enforcement initiatives may "make things look prettier" but it doesn't address the reasons the addicts are there -- lack of social housing, addictions services, mental-health care and a social-safety net without so many gaping holes, Guild said.

Meantime, near the corner of Main and Hastings, crack addict "Camera" said people frequent the stinking, rubbish-strewn alleys because they are ashamed and afraid.

She does drugs in public, she said yesterday, because she "likes to be around other people."

"They should be grateful this is where we are -- and this is where we stay."

[Solidly-here]

Shooting Heroin in Public = Not a Good thing.

If the Canadian government sets up a "free" place to inject yourself with Heroin, please use that place to inject your Heroin.

But, some people want to "flaunt" their addiction (and blow-away the local citizenry, at the same time). So, in order to "force" the addicts to shoot in private (where they should be shooting), the Vancouver "police sweep the streets and alleys around the Hastings Street safe-injection site looking for addicts shooting up in public. Thirteen people were arrested and charged."

I consider myself pretty liberal about what people choose to do with their life (and bodies), but I must agree with Vancouver: "Don't upset other people, when you don't have to."

[motorhead]

CN BC: Outdoor Drug-Use Arrests Double
by Jonathan Woodward, (01 Mar 2006) Globe and Mail British Columbia
VANCOUVER -- The number of drug-related arrests in Vancouver has more than doubled in the 11 days since police began cracking down on open-air drug use, police statistics show.

Ten charges have been laid, all for smoking crack in public places, including bus stops and parks. Police said they have also laid nine charges against people who allegedly were carrying drugs when they were arrested for something else.

Before Feb. 17, just using illegal drugs such as crack, heroin or marijuana wasn't enough to cause police to lay charges; the person would also have had to be suspected of doing something else illegal, such as driving impaired or being the subject of a warrant.

The Crown, so far, has not rejected any of those nine charges on the grounds that arresting addicts isn't in the public interest, as was the problem with previous crackdowns, said Inspector Bob Rolls, who commands District 2, which includes the Eastside. "We've had a level of success," he said.

But all of those arrests were in the several blocks that constitute the Downtown Eastside, police said. Though the crackdown was announced as being citywide, much of the enforcement has been in the troubled area.

If all the arrests are for crack, that means people are using Vancouver's supervised injection site and keeping heroin use inside, said Ann Livingston, executive director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

But if local businesses want to keep crack users off the street, out of bus stops or Oppenheimer Park, they should support an inhalation room, where crack users can smoke safely, she said.

"For crack users, there just isn't anywhere to go," she said.

Al DesLauriers, who manages Save-On Meats on Hastings Street, said he hasn't seen many more police officers, but he has seen many new faces.

"There are lots of new dealers about," he said. "Maybe some are lying low or maybe this crackdown will take a little longer."

[MrJim]

This happens a couple of times a year there. Or Granville street for pot sellers. They like to show they are doing something in an area that needs alot more help than arresting end users. The area needs social reconstruction in the extreme.