Four Pillars Drug Strategy
Welcome to the City of Vancouver's Four Pillars website, where you'll
find up-to-date information about events, projects, initiatives,
research and partnerships that make up Vancouver's Four Pillars
Drug Strategy.
The four pillars of Vancouver's drug policy are:
 Prevention
Promoting healthy families and communities, protecting child
and youth development, preventing or delaying the start of
substance use among young people and reducing harm associated
with substance use. Successful prevention efforts aim to improve
the health of the general population and reduce differences
in health between groups of people. |
 Treatment
Offering individuals access to services that help people come
to terms with problem substance use and lead healthier lives,
including outpatient and peer-based counseling, methadone
programs, daytime and residential treatment, housing support
and ongoing medical care. |
 Harm Reduction
Reducing the spread of deadly communicable diseases, preventing
drug overdose deaths, increasing substance users' contact
with health care services and drug treatment programs and
reducing consumption of drugs in the street. |
 Enforcement
Recognizing the need for peace and quiet, public order and
safety in the Downtown Eastside and other Vancouver neighbourhoods
by targeting organized crime, drug dealing, drug houses, problem
businesses involved in the drug trade, and improving coordination
with health services and other agencies that link drug users
to withdrawal management (detox), treatment, counseling and
prevention services. |
Insite
RECENT EVENTS...
- Supreme Court ruling opens doors to drug injection clinics across Canada
Kirk Makin, Sunny Dhillon and Ingrid Peri,
Globe and Mail,
September 30, 2011
- Toronto closer to getting safe injection site
Megan Ogilvie, Healthzone.ca, September 30, 2011
- Montreal's first safe-injection site could arrive in 2012
Jan Ravensbergen, Montreal Gazette, September 30, 2011
- Safe-injection site ruling could impact Saskatchewan
Supreme Court rules to support B.C. safe-injection site
News Talk 650 CKOM, September 30, 2011
- Heroin should be given to addicts: Expert
Insite is allowed to stay open
Renee Bernard, News1130, October 1, 2011
- Drug sites may spread after ruling
AIDS group wants Victoria to have venue for supervised injections
Bradley Bouzane and And Cindy E. Harnett, Times Colonist, October 1, 2011
- Mayor, police chief oppose safe injection site in Ottawa
Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen, October 1, 2011
- U.S. wanted safe injection facility shut down
Lee Berthiaume, Vancouver Sun, October 1, 2011
- VIEW THE SUPREME COURT HEARING OF MAY 12
...AND NEWS
- Drug fight needs injection of reality
National Times, Australia, May 20, 2011
- ...Insite, crime and Harper's war on facts
Times Colonist, May 19, 2011
- Insite activist threatens ‘civil disobedience’ in Vancouver
The Vancouver Courrier, May 18, 2011
- Letters to the Editor: Addiction is....
(with a response from Dr. Perry Kendall, Provincial Health Officer) The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2011
- Is addiction really a disease? by Margaret Wente
The Globe and Mail, May 17, 2011
- If a drug policy works, Harper wants nothing to do with it
Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 2011
- Insite offers the most likely path to complete makeover
The Province, May 17, 2011
- Lawyers, doctors and addicts at public forum urge Vancouver to save Insite
The Vancouver Observer, May 17, 2011
- Addicts will die if Vancouver injection site closes
The Vancouver Courier, May 17, 2011
- The real crime would be shutting Insite down
Metro, May 16, 2011
- Insite saved Travis Redpath until he detoxed
The Province, May 15, 2011
- Column - Insite is more than clean drug equipment
Times Columnist, May 15, 2011
- Insite's next battle: supervised inhalation
The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2011
- Q&A: Nurse offers Christian defence of Insite facility
The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2011
- No decision reached to end federal support for supervised injection site: lawyer
The Canadian Press, May 12, 2011
- No evidence to contradict studies that supervised drug injections save addicts' lives
The Toronto Star, May 12, 2011
- Insite is increasingly mainstream
The Vancouver Sun, May 12, 2011
- The arguments for and against Vancouver's supervised injection site
The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2011
- Five Vancouver Mayors call on federal government to reconsider opposition to Insite
Mayor of Vancouver Blog Archives, May 10, 2011
City of Vancouver Endorses The Vienna Declaration
"The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in
overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed".
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Four Pillars Supported Employment Project
New York's Mayor Bloomberg invites City of Vancouver to his website on International Best Practice models Learn More
Limiting the Harms of Drug Use: An Animation
This animation was created through a partnership between the City of Vancouver's Drug Policy program and Emily Carr University of Art + Design. It shows some elements of one of the four pillars, harm reduction, through several fictional stories. See below for more information on harm reduction and a description of the creation of this animation.
Please scroll down this page for more information on all four pillars.
Limiting the harms of drug use
The stories outlined in these animations are fictional, but they are based on real situations faced by thousands of drug users in Vancouver.
Project challenged Emily Carr animators
The animation, "Limiting the harms of drug use" was produced by seven, third-year
Emily Carr University of Art + Design students.
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On June 2, 2011 the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a landmark report that denounces the "War on Drugs" and recommends various models of legal regulation of currently prohibited drugs especially cannabis...and more
Canadian Groups welcome international report condemning failed "War on Drugs" Read Here
On May 10, 2011, five Vancouver Mayors wrote a letter to the Federal government to reconsider its opposition to Insite. Read here
On March 13, 2009, the CBC's Fifth Estate aired a one-hour program on Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site, called Staying Alive.
The interim report of the Davies Commission Inquiry into the death of Frank Paul has been released.
Download PDF
On November 5, 2008 the Health Officers Council of BC wrote a letter the BC's Health Authority chairs and CEOs, the Minister of Health Services and the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport asking BC health authorities to develop supervised injection services where there is a need and as part of a continuum of health services.
Download PDF
On October 17, 2008, researchers released data from the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) study. The trials examined whether heroin-assisted therapy or methadone therapy is better for improving the health and quality of life of long-term opiate users. The study included 251 participants; 192 in Vancouver and 59 in Montreal.
Read the results summary
Read the news release
On May 31, 2008 Angus Reid Strategies released its poll showing that the vast majority of Greater Vancouver residents would not choose to close Vancouver's supervised injection site, Insite.
Click here
to read the poll results.
On May 29, 2008 City of Vancouver Drug Policy Coordinator Donald MacPherson addressed the federal Standing Committee on Health. Click here to read his comments.
On May 27, 2008 the Honourable Mr. Justice Ian Pitfield released his ruling permitting Vancouver's Supervised Injection Site to remain open for another year, while the federal government rewrites a key section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Pitfield said the law currently governing illicit substances violates the Constitution. Click here to read the full decision.
The City of Vancouver has initiated an innovative collaboration among a broad range of Vancouver's institutional and community stakeholders. This group is committed to addressing the urgent situation facing some of Vancouver's most vulnerable citizens: those with mental health and addictions problems who are also homeless or living in substandard conditions.
More information
The Last Edition of the Four Pillars News (temporarily on hold)
February 2009
Street Addicts, one of the films created by participants in a City of Vancouver Drug Policy Program/Reel Youth workshop was screened at the Vancouver International Youth Festival as part of a program of the best of youth film making.
View the film
Vancouver Drug Policy Program Coordinator Donald MacPherson has won a prestigious National Award for Excellence in Reducing the Harm Associated with Substance Abuse from the Kaiser Foundation.
Read the City of Vancouver Press Release
Read the Globe and Mail story
Three-quarters
(74%) of Greater Vancouver residents say they support the
four-pillar approach to dealing with drug problems in Vancouver
's Downtown Eastside. View detailed results of a February
2007 Ipsos Reid poll on Vancouver's drug policy and the
Downtown Eastside.
Ipsos Reid poll
results
Meanwhile, 76% of Vancouver residents support a license extension for the Supervised Injection Site, located in the city's Downtown Eastside.
Mustel Group poll results 
Preventing and Reducing Harm from
Substance Use
Vancouver City Council voted unanimously on Nov. 3, 2005
to adopt the prevention plan Preventing Harm From Psychoactive
Substance Use. The report outlines the need for a comprehensive
and evidence-based prevention strategy for Vancouver.
View
the plan
Youth-friendly:
The short & sweet version
The Cost of Substance Abuse in
Canada 2002 (Released 2006)
The results of the national Cost of Substance Abuse in Canada
2002 report were released in April, 2006. It estimates that,
in 2002, abuse of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs cost
Canadians about $40 billion. The cost to BC was $6 billion.
LEARN
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