Pubdate: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Vancouver Courier Contact: http://www.vancourier.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474 Author: Mike Howell, Staff writer SULLIVAN SUPPLIED MONEY FOR CRACK At least three times in his life, NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan has given money to drug addicts to help them buy drugs to "manage" their illnesses. The 12-year councillor said he did it to also learn more about drug addiction in the city. "I believe for some people with addictions, it is a sickness which you have to fix," said Sullivan, who is battling Vision Vancouver's Jim Green to replace Larry Campbell as mayor. "For others, it's a disability which is a long-term problem that you manage." The recipients of Sullivan's money were a crack addict in his 30s living in the Downtown Eastside, a young heroin-addicted prostitute working in Collingwood and a close friend of the Sullivan family. Sullivan wouldn't say whether he was worried about being arrested in any of the cases, but said he won't apologize for actions now under attack from rival politicians. Coun. Raymond Louie, seeking re-election under the Vision Vancouver banner, called Sullivan's behaviour inappropriate and said it did not advance the city's Four Pillar drug strategy. Louie wondered how Sullivan would feel if any of the people he gave money to for drugs had overdosed and died. "Is this the type of behaviour that's appropriate for a mayoralty candidate, where he works outside the system?" said Louie, noting Sullivan doesn't have a medical degree. "It's surprising that he would undertake that role." The most recent case involving Sullivan occurred more than three years ago. Sullivan said he gave money to Shawn Millar, a community activist, to buy crack cocaine in the Downtown Eastside. He supplied the money to Millar after meeting him for dinner in Chinatown. Sullivan responded to an email from Millar, and wanted to help him launch a bike tour to promote free heroin programs. "Obviously he was getting very agitated in the middle of our conversation and he was going to leave and I just asked him, 'What's wrong?', and he said, 'I need money for drugs.' I was worried he would go steal something or do something illegal, so I offered him the money. Then I figured I was there to learn, so why don't I learn how he does it." Millar bought crack cocaine, which sells for $10 a rock, while Sullivan waited in his van at Columbia and Hastings. Once the deal was done, Millar smoked the crack inside Sullivan's van. Millar left to buy more drugs with money from the councillor because Sullivan, who is disabled and in a wheelchair, didn't witness the first transaction. "He went out of the van and went up the street and I just observed him," Sullivan said. "Where we were, drugs were blatantly and openly being sold and consumed. It was quite shocking what was going on." In a more expensive harm reduction experiment, Sullivan, who now lives in Yaletown, gave a 20-year-old prostitute $40 a day to buy heroin for three weeks. The incident occurred in the late 1990s when Sullivan lived in Collingwood. He said he wanted to prevent the woman, who was plying her trade outside a convenience store in his neighbourhood, from turning tricks to feed her habit. "This was a young woman who had a mother that loved her in Calgary. I had become very angry with a society that would let this lovely young woman degrade herself because our morals wouldn't allow us to accept where she was and help her try to move past it without destroying her life in the process." In a third case, Sullivan said, he gave money to a family friend who was addicted to drugs. He wouldn't elaborate but said he was no longer supplying the money. Sullivan is an advocate of the city's drug strategy, and claims to have been the first politician in Canada-in 1997-to call for harm reduction as part of public policy. Since then, Sullivan has also called for the federal government to ditch the city's heroin maintenance trials and simply issue the drug to addicts throughout the city. The sooner the government dispenses heroin, the sooner crime such as break-ins caused by addicts will decrease in Vancouver, he said. Sullivan also believes politicians have focused too much on the city's supervised injection site instead of the victims of crimes caused by drug addicts. "I believe this government has focused totally on the person with the addiction and almost not at all on the reduction of harm to the community," he added. The election is Nov. 19. - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFlorida)