Why Sullivan's Drug 'Progress' Isn't

Sam Sullivan's vague, strange proposal to supply Vancouver's drug addicts with free heroin risks reversing the dramatic progress the city has made in the last six years on the fight against poverty, crime and addiction.

Vancouver boasts North America's first supervised injection site because of the painstaking evaluation, community consultation and scientific evaluation that laid the groundwork for the Four Pillars Strategy.

It was a bipartisan success, endorsed by all sides at council and supported by the Vancouver Police Department and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

It is based on the principle that addiction is a health issue.

That strategy, now accepted across Canada as a model, has some radical ideas: regulation, rather than prohibition, of drugs; a strong emphasis on prevention; a commitment to enforcement and, yes, harm reduction.

It does not propose free distribution of heroin - or alcohol, for that matter.

Plenty of questions

Creating Vancouver's first supervised injection site for injection drug users was not a simple task. It was strongly opposed by many in the community, but is up and running after years of debate. Although the first three-year pilot program will not conclude until September, the initial round of evaluations was resoundingly positive.

Nor was it easy to launch the NAOMI trials, now under way in Vancouver and two other Canadian cities, to see how heroin maintenance programs might help the most seriously addicted users. It, too, is now moving forward.

In both cases, public consultation, understanding and support has been crucial.

But Sullivan has expressed impatience at the slow pace of the NAOMI trial, suggesting we should just get on with the drug distribution.

Who will pay for the drugs? Who will provide them? Who will receive them? What is the legal status of this proposal? Will there be treatment available? Where would distribution occur? Who supports this idea? Who opposes it?

Stay tuned - Sullivan will keep us posted.

'Libertarian laboratory'

In the meantime, what happens to the Four Pillars Strategy?

A full five months into his mandate, Sullivan has yet to convene a meeting of the Four Pillars Coalition, which provided the momentum to open the first supervised injection site.

The coalition generated a community consensus based on widespread consultation, but Sullivan seems bent on using Vancouver -- and those ill with addiction -- as a laboratory for his personal libertarian perspective.

If implementing the supervised injection site was a challenge, how will the public warm up to widespread heroin distribution?

The fundamental problem: Sullivan believes that addiction is not an illness, it's a disability. Unlike disease, which may be treated or even cured, a disability is with you for life.

Sullivan, paralyzed in a skiing accident, will always need his wheelchair. When he was injured, he got a wheelchair and got on with his life.

He prescribes the same approach to addiction. Acknowledge the disability, he says, give the addicts the drugs, then hope they will stop their criminal activity and get on with life.

It's a strange concept of harm reduction: if you want to help an alcoholic, buy another round.

September decision looms

Sullivan's proposal builds on his own personal initiatives to provide drugs to addicts, efforts which have raised doubts about his ability to chair the police board and triggered an RCMP inquiry.

But Sam Sullivan is no longer the junior councillor who has several times assisted addicts to procure drugs. He is the mayor of the host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The time for experiments and freelance research is over.

The legal exemption necessary to operate the supervised injection site expires in September. Will Prime Minister Stephen Harper renew it? Will there be funding to continue the project? Should it expand? What do voters think of the Four Pillars Strategy three years after implementation began?

This is the serious work Mayor Sullivan needs to focus on. The Four Pillars Strategy is a tough, complex project. It is part of a fight against poverty and addiction that unfolded as provincial housing and welfare programs were cut. Was the absence of free heroin a key problem or was more at play?

If the mayor is serious about his proposal for widespread free drug distribution, he should ask city staff to prepare a comprehensive assessment as part of a full Four Pillars. Then let the public in on the debate.

Geoff Meggs was an aide to Vancouver's previous mayor, Larry Campbell.