Vancouver plans to reevaluate its drug strategy as the city's drug czar makes his exit in the coming days.
Mayor Gregor Robertson yesterday confirmed reports of drug policy coordinator Donald MacPherson's resignation.
MacPherson laid the groundwork for Vancouver's internationally recognized Four Pillars Drug Strategy, which centres on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement.
Robertson said the city would take a new approach with a sharper focus on treatment and prevention.
"We're looking at a new alignment in our community services that integrate drug policy with health and mental health," he said. "It's really kind of an evolution of [Four Pillars] and making sure a couple pillars work very closely in tandem."
When an upcoming budget and shared services review is completed city officials could opt to leave MacPherson's current position vacant.
Mark Townsend, director of Vancouver's safe-injection centre Insite, said a shift away from the Four Pillars strategy isn't negative.
"What you need is a comprehensive approach," he said. "I'm sure that this is just a matter of the city not having money to keep positions like Donald's in these difficult times."
Dharm Makwana reports for Vancouver 24 hours.
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2010homelesschamps
2 years ago
The drug czar
This guy deserves an award the drug's that have been available for vancouver's addicted have never flowed so freely on another note
VANCOUVER CITY OF ADDICTION
The dtes is a melting pot of people from all walks, The addiction scourge that exists there will continue to grow as long as this lifestyle is supported by so called harm reduction policies. Safe injection clean needles I agree with for health and potential overdoses. The fact that the Vancouver Police Department will not charge you for possession makes this part of town a freeway to hell. The so called four pillars approach should add another pillar, the fact that insite has over seven thousand registered IV users and the estimated number of people in active addiction is said to be some ten thousand in a twelve square block area, means that all these addict’s have a habit to support and drug’s to buy. To me the fifth pillar seems to be let the drug dealers do what they want. The amount of arrest’s for trafficking does not add up compared to consumption how do i know you ask, well let me tell from a personal observation. Over the last five years I walk and or drive through this area of town daily and it seems that the same drug dealer’s set up shop at the same locations. I have never seen them arrested the seem to be untouchable so in conclusion I say the fifth pillar must be to supply the four. You can get heroin, cocaine ,crack, rx, weed, twenty four seven in this part of town at many well known places. People from across the city as well the country migrate here to the addiction capital of north America knowing that it’s a free for all
2010homelesschamps
2 years ago
DRUG DEAL'S SUPPORT FOUR PILLARS
WHO’S IN CONTROL Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Today in the downtown eastside of Vancouver it is welfare day. The streets are buzzing with addicts on every corner, and in every alley there are smiles everywhere as people line up to cash their welfare checks at the many different financial institutions.
Money is being spent on many different things, but the main expenditure on this the most joyful day of the month is drugs; heroin, crack or cocaine, alcohol etc. Although this has been going on for years and is accepted by not only the city, the police, the taxpayers, and the government .
I as a citizen of this city have had enough! Do I care? You bet I do! I myself have recovered from 25 years of addiction and today have been clean for some seven years. What I saw today was to me the last straw, not more than 300 hundred yards from the Vancouver Police Station on Main Street is a check cashing store, out front there’s a line up since it opened its doors this morning; I walked by and could not believe my eyes. There were 5 two hundred pound Spanish drug dealers standing in front of the door escorting people in and out of the store as if it was theirs, controlling who went in, and even more importantly who came out, only too happy to direct them to one of their associates standing nearby. I was so disgusted by this flagrant arrogance that I took five minutes to walk over to the police station and tell them their business and to complain about what I see as nothing short of telling the people of Vancouver who’s really in control!
I don’t believe there’s anywhere else in North America that you would ever witness this kind of lawlessness as seen here in the 2010 Olympic city. I’m appealing to every editor of every newspaper in North America other than here in Vancouver to help me stop this out of control situation. Please for the sake of these humans, help me to put pressure on our police, city, and government to enforce the laws of this land and save all or any of these poor lost souls from a life of terminal addiction.
The Blackbird
2 years ago
Only so much the City can do on its own
To really solve the problem of drugs, guns and gang-related crime in our region, a coordinated effort involving all levels of government including the regional port authorities and Canadian Forces.
Breaking cartels, stopping imports at points of entry, ending money laundering by our major banks and securities firms, ending our near decade-long war in a country that produces more than 90% of the world's opium supply, shutting down the open black markets on our streets, and - as the City plans to do - emphasize treatment and prevention.
Legitimate societal institutions must re-affirm their obligation to act within the law and not place profit before human life. For this to happen, for a just society to be recreated, some big heads will roll and many into prison cells.
The City should hire someone who, while able to oversee a staff committed primarily to prevention and treatment programs, has the freedom to meet with officials of other levels of government to find out why port security is such an understaffed field of labour, or why drug dealers are permitted to sell deadly poisons on the street kitty corner to the City's secondary police station? We need to know why the Federal Government stopped prosecuting our major financial institutions for laundering drug profits off shore? We need to know how and why so much Afghan heroin finds its way to our streets, how so much South American cocaine and the base chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs enter the country from Asia.
Our brave and loyal soldiers continue to die overseas while the weak among us are marginalized by the law, contract fatal illnesses and overdose. The poppy, as a symbol of Canadian participation in battle, may - if viewed from a cynical lens - be considered tarnished by Canada's involvement in the Afghan war.
The City needs a point man or woman, someone engaged who will press for answers on these questions. In this way, through open public discourse that exposes corrupt elements in our society, will a peaceful and lawful solution to this deadly, greed-based problem be found.
Where is our Percival?