In 2001, Vancouver’s City Council unanimously adopted the A Framework for Action: A Four-Pillar Approach to Drug Problems in Vancouver. Since then, a number of Canadian cities have started to approach their own drug problems with some variation of the four-pillar approach. In interviews, most City representatives mentioned how their own research started with A Framework for Action, which gave them the background information to approach the issue in their own community. Most representatives also mentioned conversations with Vancouver's Drug Policy office as being key to their research.
Prevention pillar brought into focus
By Mayor Sam Sullivan
At the last meeting of the Four Pillars Coalition we had the opportunity to review and assess the progress of a number of very important and innovative initiatives happening in our city.
One of the participants in the City of Vancouver’s supported employment project for recovering drug users got a little broader experience than he’d anticipated: along with his new labouring sewer and water skills, he also learned how to walk a picket line.
There’s a lot more SACY in the Vancouver School District these days. SACY, or the School-Age Children and Youth substance abuse prevention program, started off last year as a pilot program in two secondary schools, as described in a June 2007 Four Pillars News story.
MP Libby Davies believes the federal government’s extension of InSite’s Health Act exemption, allowing Vancouver’s supervised injection site to exist until the end of June, had little to do with the government recognizing the benefits of InSite and everything to do with polls: she believes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government accurately gauged public opinion. Former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen agrees.
The City of Vancouver has initiated an innovative collaboration among a broad range of Vancouver’s institutional and community stakeholders. The process is called the Collaboration for Change.