Pubdate: Mon, 08 Aug 2016
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Nick Eagland
Page: 4
Referenced: Drug Situation in Vancouver: http://mapinc.org/url/551ImJGy

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE VIOLENCE PROBED

DRUGS: German researcher looks for ways to reduce harm in notorious
neighbourhood

An international drug and addiction researcher says she has been
astonished by the level of violence perpetrated by dealers and
"enforcers" in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside.

Dr. Anke Stallwitz, a professor of social and community psychology
from the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Freiburg in
Germany, has been studying the neighbourhood since March.

"What I wanted to do was to look at violence in (drug-dealing)
situations, because I knew that dealing is very openly done here in
the Downtown Eastside - and differently from other places," said
Stallwitz, who has studied community-mindedness in drug cultures in
Scotland and Germany for 16 years.

What she didn't expect was the violent, "extreme sanctions" being used
by some higher-level "boss" dealers when debts weren't settled.

"The sanction part is massive here ... violence as I've not
experienced anywhere else on the street level," she said.

Stallwitz spent five months working with the Vancouver Area Network of
Drug Users, interviewing 24 users, most of whom also dealt drugs at
the street-level. She worked with some of them to form an "action
team" which then met with larger groups at VANDU's Hastings Street
facility to discuss violence and to investigate how a peer-run
approach might restrain the brutality.

The groups brainstormed a long list of violent acts they had
experienced or witnessed, often at the hands of "enforcers" hired by
higher-level dealers to settle drug debts and collect exorbitant
penalties. She stressed that not all higher-level dealers are violent,
and some have reputations for treating street-level dealers with kindness.

But she also heard about robberies, forced dealing and prostitution,
as well as "hot shots" - where someone is intentionally given an
overdose - and attacks with carpet knives, sexual assaults and rape.
Her sources recounted rare cases of people being pushed from windows,
having their hair sliced off, being set on fire, and even murdered for
as little as $30.

Stallwitz said she found the violence most prevalent in the East
100-block of Hastings Street, between Columbia and Main, where the
dealing hierarchy is disorganized and sanctions aren't tied to clearly
defined rules. Unlike most other blocks, which are tightly regulated
by higher-level dealers and groups, on this block, anyone can sell
meth, crack and heroin.

A 2013 report on Vancouver's drug situation by the B.C. Centre for
Excellence in HIV/AIDS found that about 15 per cent of all drug users
reported experiencing some form of violence in 2011. Stallwitz
suspects that acts of violence are much more common.

"I found that here in the Downtown Eastside, there's a great chance to
actually reduce violence because there is an understanding that drug
use can't be eradicated. It can't be stopped, but it can be shaped,"
she said. "The police can actually play a massive role in reducing the
harm by thinking very carefully where they move in repressively and
where they look at the bigger picture, what's going to happen to the
person."

One complaint she heard repeatedly was of police confiscating drugs
without providing users or dealers with a record of the seizure.

"They then go to their bosses and say, 'The police have taken the
drugs off me.' Then they reply, 'Well, you just smoked it all, you
injected it, you stole it.' That often leads to massive violence and
that is something, of course, that is possible for the police to
handle differently."

Vancouver Police Const. Brian Montague said arrestees are given a
notice to appear in court, but there are cases where police will find
drugs near a person but not have enough evidence linking them to the
drugs for a charge to hold up in court. In such cases, officers will
seize the drugs without making an arrest. If someone seeks proof of
that, they can ask the officer for a business card with a file number,
he said.

Stallwitz worked with the VANDU groups to developed a
"socially-responsible code of conduct" for dealers and buyers. They
plan to make pamphlets to disperse in the area that will promote
reflection on violent behaviour and outline clear non-violent
sanctions for when rules are broken.

"There are a lot of people who say, 'Oh, you'll always have violence
in dealing, you can't change it,' " Stallwitz said. "But I've been in
quite a number of different countries and looked at very different
scenes. I've seen very different levels of violence."

In October, Stallwitz will fly to Stockholm to continue her work. Last
week, she passed leadership of the Downtown Eastside focus group to
VANDU. Board member Hugh Lampkin said Stallwitz's work helped the
group understand how the drug-using community addresses violence internally.

"Besides the obvious (harms), the other part is it brings police and
attention to what they're doing while they're dealing with drugs and
all the negative aspect of drugs," Lampkin said.

When a drug user is a victim of violence, they may not report it for
fear of police involvement, and so, "when you have an illegal black
market and money involved, people think they can get away with
violence," Lampkin said.

Lampkin said a newly formed "Safer Neighbourhood Action Team" will
meet regularly to work on mitigating violence in the drug scene.
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MAP posted-by: Matt