Angry in the Great White North
To solve the problem, you have to solve the problem
Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 06:41 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

News out of Vancouver:

No other city in North America would tolerate the sort of open drug use seen daily on Vancouver's streets, parks and school grounds, Vancouver police said Tuesday. And they vowed they're going to put a stop to it.

Insp. Bob Rolls, who is in charge of District 2, the northeast section of the city that includes the Downtown Eastside, announced a new enforcement program against public drug use.

The open use has led to a horrific situation:

Rolls said there is an elementary school, which he did not name, in his district where the janitor begins each day by sweeping the school grounds for used syringes, crack pipes, broken bottles, beer cans, used condoms and human excrement before children arrive.

At Strathcona elementary school, he said, 300 used needles were picked up around the school in a one-month period.

Rolls said that last summer, a woman was with her child in the grounds of an East Hastings community centre when the child picked up a used needle and put it in its mouth.

"The mother stopped breathing and rushed the child to hospital and thankfully the child was okay. The mother said when she takes her children to play in that community centre she always checks the sand at the foot of the slide to see if there's any needles," he said.

Of course, the chance that a child my get AIDS has to be balanced against the rights and dignity of drug abusers:

Dianne Tobin, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), said such enforcement would only drive the activity out of the Downtown Eastside into other areas.

"I feel sorry for the people of Strathcona because the police will drive the problem there. I think it's a waste of money and a waste of time," she said.

"We want to see it [on-street drug use] stopped too and we are trying to do something about it. But if you're homeless and living in an alley, where else are you going to shoot up?

"We're concerned that the police are turning the clock back 10 years and are going to start throwing homeless and marginalized people in jail," she said.

If kids weren't getting stuck with needles ten years ago, I suspect more than a few parents would jump headlong into that time machine.

But Tobin has a point. These drug abusers are homeless and poor. Without a means of supporting themselves, they will steal from law-abiding citizens to feed their drug habit, supplied by organized crime gangs. How can we help them (the drug users, not the gangs)?

Well, assuming that Vancouverites aren't willing to strangle the drug problem by rounding up the abusers, cutting them off from their supply, and so put the drug dealers out of business, the only other approach is to somehow help them break out of the cycle of poverty.

For that you need jobs.

For jobs you need investment.

For investment you have to entice people with money to spend it in Vancouver. Those people have to be convinced that Vancouver will provide a safe environment for customers and employees, and their families.

An obvious first step is to eliminate the open use of illegal drugs on city streets. I can guarantee you that a fellow looking to open a Tim Horton's franchise is going to look elsewhere if he thinks his Vancouver store is going to be a hangout for strung-out street people hoping to bum a coffee between highs.

So to get the economic activity started that will help eliminate the poverty that will get the drug abusers off the streets, you have to get the drug abusers off the streets.

Sorry, Tobin, but it looks like that time machine set for ten years past is the way to go. The way Vancouver has been heading looks like a dead end.

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