“It can only be done by you,” Senator Larry Campbell told his audience about dealing with the problems with substance abuse in their communities.

Campbell spoke to a group of about 90 people Tuesday night at Kitchener Collegiate as the closing keynote address of a series put on by Community Safety & Crime Prevention Council.

In The Minds Eye 2006: Issues of Substance Use in Film + Forum

Campbell was speaking about the four pillars program, which he introduced as Mayor of Vancouver. The program was a strategy to combat drug addiction in the city and include the pillars: prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement. The four piollars have since been adopted in Kelowna, B.C.; Victoria; and Toronto.

The harm reduction pillar included a safe injection sites where addicts were able to inject their drugs with clean needles, under the supervision of a nurse, and had an opportunity to speak with former addicts about overcoming their addictions.

Campbell was born in Brantford and worked as a steel worker in Hamilton. He joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was moved to Vancouver in 1969. He would later be come the Vancouver District Coroner and then the Chief Coroner for B.C. inspiring the CBC television show Da Vinci’s Inquest, on which he collaborated with the show’s creators. He retired as coroner in 2000. In 2002 he chose to run for mayor to succeed Mayor Phillip Owen with whom he had worked on strategies for drug addiction in the city. Campbell won the vote, as did councillors running in his municipal party, the Coalition of Progressive Electors.

“We ran 23 and elected 23,” he said of his party’s success in that election.

His television alter ego would also run and win as mayor inspiring the show to become Da Vinci’s City Hall. The show was cancelled before Dominic Da Vinci could move to Ottawa and work in the red room.

Here are some things that he said:

• He knows Carl Zehr from a different time. He was going to say something nice about him, but found out that he’s already been re-elected.
• Born in Brantford. Joined RCMP. Teransferrred to Vancouver… coroner… Da Vinci
• Became mayor 2002. 4 pillars drug strategy
• “I was coming down here and I thought I was on the wrong road . I knew the farmer’s market is on the right. It found out that the farmer’s market has moved twice since I lived here.”
• “They were idyllic times growing up in the Grand River Valley in the 1950s”
• People say that if we just increase enforcement that we could have safe neighbourhoods, white picket fences, and rinks on every corner watered by our dads. “We cannot go back. Time does not stand still.”
• This series is great. I’m sorry I missed the other speakers and movies. “I’ve been trying to move the senate to Kitchener, but they just won’t go for it.”
• “We want to make our community safe.” [...] “Where everyone is included.”
• People ask me …” How does one go from being a narc to being a coroner” The answer is easy. “Narcs enforce the law; coroner I was trying to keep people alive.
• It’s about keeping people alive. People who frankly are suffering health issue.
• Downtown east side is my favourite place in Vancouver. … It’s a little edgy.
• East side is famous across Canada. It is the poorest zip code in Canada.
• We abandoned it the streets were taken over. We allowed things to happen there that we wouldn’t allow elsewhere.
• 400 people a year were dying from drugs.
• Mayor Phillip Owen asked wWhat can we do to get things safer?
• They met with people in the East side. Once an addict came to a meeting.
• Found out that there was this group Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. They took m,e to this place on Cowl Street, which unbeknownst to me was an injection site. Thought to myself. i hope the police don’t take this place down while I am here.
• People have said to me that sex trade workers do that because they enjoy it. They say drug users wanted to do that. They said it because they think those things don’t happen to good people.
• In Europe drug addiction is called a uniscance.
• Swiss set up a safe injection site. A needle park in Zurich.
• “I wasn’t for thie idea. I thought it was an enabler.”
• you don’t have to sell the it (the idea of a safe injection site). You may not need one. Not one like Vancouver.
• “I don’t know what is illegal about it. you are providing health care.”
• He was going to go ahead with it regardless of permission, but he got buy-in from health Canada.
• They sent in the police (the enforcement pillar).”People forget that law enforcement is a big part.” “There’s no sense in opening a safe injection site with an open drug market.
• The provincial government of Gordon Campbell funded neeedle exchange.
• Federal government funded half a million on studies. “I said, ‘you want the studies, you pay for them.’”
• We had enforcement and harm reduction. Treatment will always be a problem.
• Then there’s prevention. DARE program (garboage) “‘Don’t do it.’” Doesn’t work on kids today.
• “B.C. would be in recession if it weren’t for marijuana.”
• At one time it (matrijuana) was the leading industry in B.C.
• Grow ops have an impact on kids. Kids who live in grow ops are affected by chemicals and CO2.
• “We say to kids. ‘this is what all these drugs are pharmacologically.’”
• We want to reduce preventable deaths and injury.
• THey go in thei have a kidney bone (?) a tie, handi wipe, canle, clean needle , and a clean spoon. There are mirrors so people can watch themselves and so the nurse who is behind them can see them.
• In three years 400 people overdosed; not one died.
• Nurse checks for abcesses and cuts. Find out if they are sick iif they are sniffling. Then they can have a coffee and talk to someone who has overcome addiction.
• 1,000 people have entered treatment.
• If you become HIV positive it costs $200,000/year
• 650 injections, 365 days, 3 years. Just need to stop 30 people from getting HIV and it is worth it.
• Not including the cost of emergency room visits.
• Those health care savings go directly into your pockets.
• It reduces harm. We focus on harm caused by substance abuse.
• When you go forward, base it on good science. GOod science will triumph over BS.
• There was an piece in the newspaper about death from marijuana. I called her up and asked her about what studies she had. She said she heard it from a friend of a friend. It was printed in the Globe and Mail
• Police are on the ground they end up with a myopic view.
• A police said that the measure had no impact. There were no attributions no studies.
• He prefers the peer-reviewed study.
• Reasearch has indicated no increased drug use in vicinity of the site.
• Drop in crime.
• “It’s not a honey bucket.”
• You cannot let rumor, innuendo, and misinformation stand.If evidence is there, I’ll go with it, but I won’t let bad science overtake good science.
• The national drug strategy is four pillars.
• I want to keep people safe, healthy, and alive.
• Kelowna, Victoria, and Toronto all accepted four pillars.
• Who’s going to put the money up? It’s aprovincial jurisdiction, but money comes fromt he federal government.
• We think we have the answer, but where’s the money going to come from.
• It’s not just a big city problem.
• It’s a problem in Brantford, in Vernon and in small town QUebec.
• There’s a report. Kirby Report, senate report called Out of the SHadows at last. It’s a blueprint about where wwe should be going with mental illness
• We signed a treaty on drugs. We do not want a country where prisons are a growth industry. The war on drugsbreaks up families … is racially motivated way of doing business
• I refuse to follow that. … they have more people in prisons than anywhere in the world.
• IN afghanistan poppies are up 55%. How about buy it. turn it into medical morphine. It may be crazy. We have to …
• It’s not a time to cut and run. It can only be done by you. When people are afraid. … If you have fear it doesn’t matter. … on the eEast side they were celebrating the Carnegie Hall’s 100th anniversary. These old ladies came and told a police officer that finally they felt safe on the street. The Carnegie hall is like their living room. They could come out of their single rooms.
• At big city mayors conference Carl sitcks out. We don’t consider Kitchener a big city (he was joking). You have a mayor that cares.
• We will do anything to make our cities bettter.
• I was told this credo: We are not on earth to make a living. We are on earth to make a difference.