November 15, 1998, carnegie newsletter

NEWSLETTER 401 Main Street, Vancpver V6A 2T7 (604) 665-2289

THE NEED FOR INFORMATION IS T O O GREAT T O IGNORE

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ne year ago community residents planted 1,200 wooden crosses in Oppenheimer Park to commemo rate friends and family who had died in previous years from drug overdoses. If a cross had been planted for each person who had died of AIDS, suicide, or crime, the park would have been overflowing.

One year later there is no community consensus on a comprehensive plan to find a solution to drugs, cririe and addiction in the inner city. This area, which has the highcst incidence of HIV infection amongst injection drug users in the western world, has been dubbed "The Killing Fields."

O n November 20th, in the same park where the crosses were planted, the community will be holding a one-day forum to find solutio~lsto the problems it faces. International speakers will be travelling to Vancouver to share infor nation. Out of Harm's Way is the Vancouver Downtown Eastside's opportunity to understaradpragmatic strategies, make realistic choices, and capitalize on proven solutions to mitigats the ravaging effects of injection drug use and HIV/ AIDS on the community. The forum is planned to help build consensus for a comprehensive made-in-Vancouver solution to this tide of death and destruction.

Out of Harm's Way is designed to appeal to everyone from drug users to health professionals to policy makers. There will be no cost for participation, and the event will be held in a tent in the heart of the community. A lack of informed public debate on intravenous drug use is worsening the public health crisis in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It's time to get beyond popular misconceptions and to develop practical, community-based solutions.

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THE D A Y WILL FEATURE P R E S E N T A T I O N S F R O M 3.

Harl Haas of Portland, Oregon - Circuit - On drug courts and treatment options

Court Judge

Hannes Herrmann of Basel, Switzerland - Drug Co-ordinator for the City of Basel - On the recently completed study of the Swiss Heroin maintenance program Steffen Lux of Frankfurt, Germany - Chief of the Frankfurt Police Drug Squad - On the approach taken by the Frankfurt police department towards drug related crime

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Director of H.I.T. Andrew Bennett of Liverpool, England - On the approach taken in Liverpool to addiction and crime, over the last decade, including methadone and heroin maintenance as well as working with local businesses to create a workable solution

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D:, Bruce Alexander of Vancouver, BC - Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University - On his recently completed review of literature pertaining to cocaine, as well as his research study on the patterns of '

cocaine use for the World Health Organization Dr. Ethan Nadelmann of New York, USA

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Founder of the Lindesmith Centre crime, and addiction

- On the economic and human costs of the American strategy to deal with drugs,

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Werner Schneider of Frankfurt, Germany Drug Policy Co-ordinator for Fronkfurt - On creating a co-ordinated response to crime and addiction, including a report of the Frankfurt safe injection rooms Dr. Arnold Trebach of Washington, DC

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Professor in the Dept. of Justice and Law in Society, American University

- On public policy and the development of a strategy to move forward

The Symposium will start at 8:30 am. Sorry, no late admission. It will finish at 5:OOpm. Please attend for the whole day. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided at no cost to participants throughout the day.

A gracious thank-you to our sponsors: VN, St. Paul's Hospital, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, Ministry of Children and Families, Carnegie Community Action Project, Simon Fraser University, Health Canada, Vancouver Richmond Health Board, BC AIDS Conference, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver Magazine, Pan Pacific Hotel, Ming Pao, UBC. Without whose support this symposium in the heart of the Downtown Eastside would not be possible. It provides a real chance for residents o f the Downtown Eastside to participate in the discussion about possible solutions to an issue that seriously effects their neighbourhood. Typically this kind of symposium is held i n big conference centres with attendance to fees to high those who live with this issue everyday.

Carnegie Community Centre (reception desk) Downtown Eastside Seniors Centre Sunrise Hotel (reception desk)

Lookout Emergency Shelter Lookout, Living Room Drop-in Oppenheimer Park (Program office, Steve)

DEW

Neighbourhood Safety Office Native Health Society

DEYAS

LETTER O F THE DAY

More needs to be learned about residential schools The recent death of residential school survivor Darryl Watts should cause all of us to pause and consider that the so-called "healing" process is mostly a fiction in the minds of w h i t e o f f i c i a l s o f t h e churches and the government.

Like so many of the people I daily work with. Darryl was driven to suicide by the actions - and the inaction - of the very church that inflicted such terror on him at a young age.

Regardless of all the public relations immicks of either the federa government or the United Church, the truth is that for many decades a concerted attempt has been made

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by both institutions to conceal the abuses at the residential schools, including the deaths of children.

Ottawa admitted in its royal commission on aboriginal peoples that about 40 per cent of the students in the residential schools died in that system at least 50,000 children.

This is a genocidal mortality level that cannot be explained away by "accidental deaths" or "well-intentioned neglect" by school officials.

My own doctoral research at the Universit of B.C.uncovered letters ated as early as 1921 -and as recent1 as the 1960s -which show tKat both the United Church and the

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government knew of the suspicious deaths of children at the Alberni residential school. and not only covered u? this information but exonerated the alleged perpetrators and allowed them to continue to work There is a deeper and more ugly stor about the Indian residenti schools that is only beginning to surface. Maybe the death of Danyl Watts will shock more of us, including your newspa er, into uncovering why and ow so many native children died in our residential schools; and why they are still dying.

(REV.) KEVIN D.ANNETT Vancouver

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0 Squamish Nation Longhouse Speaker

11:OO 11:15 am

welcomes and opens event 0 Witness Ceremony past Witnesses called 0 Presentation by ministry of forests 0 Presentation by Interfor Presentation and Slides by J o h n Clarke Lunch Break 0 Presentations by artists

11:15 11:33 am 11:35 11:30 am 11:50 12:05 am 12:13 1:OOpm I.-00- 2:0opm

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Mortal Coil (50 minutes) Teresa Marshall, Cease Wyss, Delores Dallas (20 minutes) Andrea Thompson (20 minutes)

10 Minute Break 0 Presentation by Paul HundaVsustainable dev group 0 Chief Bill Williams 0 Open Microphone 0 Basket Presentation 0 Closing Ceremony

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Call to Action

Witness Ceremony Itinera]y for Sun*

3: 40 - 4:00 pm

2:00 3:30pm 3:30 3:40pm 4:00 - 4:ISpm 4:13 3:OOpm 5:00 5:20pm 3:20 - 5:40pm

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h'ovember 29"h in the Roundhouse Performance Centre

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(11 5.40p.m.)

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Carnegie Community Discussion Series Presents:

Reduction?

Roosevelt Hotel

Find Out About the ~ u t c hExperience With Liberalizing

MISSING Sarah deVries Call Missing Persons 665-3 172

m e a m Room NEW BOOKS Earth Time by David Suzub - in this new collection of essays, Suzuki points the way to a slower way of life Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience & Other Confusions of Our Time A4ichael Shemer has a devoted following of skeptics,

AGE 29, LAST SEEN EARLE*MORNING HOURS OF APRIL 14th/98. CORNER OF PRINCESS & HASTINGS ST. 1-PD FILE 95-88486 CALL 1 -8OO-65r>-ll87

Mind & Brain for Beginners Angus Gellatly & Oscar Zarate - Beginner's guide to planning and action, language, memory, attention, emotions and vision.

LJnexplained Mysteries of World War T1 Ifilljam B. Breuer - This treasury of baffling mysteries includes the Ghost Pilot of Kienow, the lifesaving candy bar, the mysterious fire on the Normandy, and many more.

The Reading Room staff have put together a fdder of reports and essays obtained from the Bureau International Affairs Drugs (GG&GD) in Amsterdam on the drug situation in the Netherlands (drug policy, harm reduction, camahis IS coffee shops. etc.) If yvu ~vvuldlike to

see this material a few copies are located with the books on addictions and a copy is kept behind the Circulation Desk (362.193) Identification is required to use the reference copy. r\/iore information can be obtained via the Internet from the Trimbos Institute, the Netherlands Institute for Alcohol and Drugs (http://www.trimbos.nT)

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I don't know anything at all anymore, I told an acquaintance last week, meaning, though I did not, at the time or at any time subsequently, explain this, that, as a humanist pessimist, I could no longer speak, or even think about, causes of any sort (logical, final, first etc.) without, simultaneously speaking or thinking about numerous inverse, contradictory, different interpretations or possible interpretations, and that, therefor, the sense, or any idea of sense, to anything at all was, to me, fictive, merely a reflection of my own state of awareness or ignorance, of the known or conscious and the unconscious together, and nothing more. Theory is first whim, accident and part precedent, and then a lie, and finally a campaign of misinformation, a gathering of statistics, sources, records or what have you, and then so-called artistic or profound pastiche of these referents toward some end, maybe a degree, a paycheque, an affair etc., usually having little or nothing to do with the theory itself, and often in contradiction to it.

Not knowing a damn thing doesn't, however, I thought, let one off the hook, as they say, but is itself the ultimate onus, a hookedness to what is that is not yet interpretation, or what is not yet understood, or whatever, as interpretation. We

7. don't "remember" wars, holocausts, cultures or what have you to understand or learn or any such nonsense, but to nostalgize the present second onto some imagmed past, to move the big decisions, as it were, away from this very moment, just as, in the future, others will move the big decisions toward us here, us anywhere, and we would be shocked, I thought, if we knew that great evils and ameliorations, or what have you, are happening as much now, this instant, as they say, as they have happened in the past. We will be part of the future's nostalgized good and evil, I thought. Most of life, I thought, if not all of it, is us avoiding what we know we could do, the big decisions, as it were, because it would cost us, most likely, our lives, as I have said before. My proclamation of ignorance performs the same function as nostalgia, I thought. I am always in a room (the present) waiting for anyone to arrive, I thought. Whether one knows shit about history or not makes no difference, I thought, in whether one becomes a racist, or what have you, or not, I thought. The reaIIy terrible thing, it occurred to me, is that all the speculative, exhaustive, catalogic and, for the most part, dangerously misleading so-called knowledge of the world won't help one person decide to save Jews, say, if Jews need to be hidden. Pessimism alone has saved the world from annihilation time and time again. When you hear it said that it can't be as bad as all that, that it can't be true, in reference to the horrors of the world, you are dealing with unwitting or willing participants in the destruction of the people of the world, 1 thought.

Fascists running everything right now will tlY to kill you if you actually do anything that might disturb or threaten them, I thought. They're happy, I thought, as long as they believe the world will last just until the moment of their deaths. This is, by the way, I thought, how bad it really is

Dan Feeney

Giving more with less

Cultural Sharing

For Downtown Eastside resident Chris Lairc, coping with rollercoaster blood sugar levels i..c one "DIABETES AND FIRST NA TIONS" of the easier parts of life with diabetes.

A pensioner, Laird lives on $175 a month aftzr WHERE: CARNEGIE CENTRE paying his rent. That amount has to cover laur dry, clothing and shoes, medical supplies, prescription WHEN. MONDAY NOVEMBER 16 1998 eyeglasses, busfare and the most critical tool for managing diabetes: food.

TIME: 1:m-3:mp.m.

"I complained of obvious symptoms of diabet.:~ for years before I finally received a diagnosis 2 nd REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED began a treatment program," recalls Laird. He said he faced what many of his friends ad neighbours struggle with daily: a feeling of not being taken FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL: seriously by healthcare professionals until the condition landed him in hospital.

Chris Laird - 665-3014 Vera Polonicoff 253-3575 Today. armed with information about diabetes, a machine to test his blood sugar and a supply of , insulin. Laird fights a daily battle to manage his condition - and he helps other Downtowa Eastside residents do the same.

"Diabetes is a balancing act," Laird says. "You're walking a tightrope and, for most of the people in , the Downtown Eastside, there's no net. 1think my personal experience ad the fact that I have the trust of the people in my community puts me in a good position to educate people - and I want to help them. I feel the need." eyeglasses, it will literally wipe out your food For the past year Laird, who was a paramedical money for the rest of the month. Even if you professional until health problems prevented his budget well, every two or three months there are working, has invested hundreds of volunteer five weeks between welfare or pension payments hours. He has set and continues to run both a - and money usually runs out after three weeks." support group and a buddy system, and he does Donna VanWalleghem, community education grassroots outreach - like testing his own blood coordinator for the Canadian Diabetes Associasugar in public to illustrate how diabetes can be tion, agrees that poverty greatly exacerbates the managed and create an opportunity for discussion. problems associated with diabetes.

Laird helps create awareness of the issues facing "Food is absolutely critical to diabetes manageimpoverished people who live with diabetes. "For ment," says VanWalleghem. "If you depend on a example. when you're living on a fixed income or food line your choices are limited and usually not below the poverty line the only flexible part of very diabetes-friendly." Food lines tend to serve your budget is what you spend on food," he starchy and fatty foods, she explains, which are explains, "so if you desperately need shoes or I

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just the opposite of the low-fat, low-sugar foods needed to help manage diabetes.

VanWalleghem explains: that it's even common for impoverished people to skip taking their insulin because they don't know when their next meal will be. "They tell us that the alternative is to take the medication and risk going into an insulin reaction which can be dangerous and frightening."

Laird, VanWalleghem and diabetes advocate Deyna Gillis are working with a coalition of

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community agencies to create community kitchens the Downtown Eastside. "The kitchens allow people to pool their resources to create healthy, 9. low-cost meals - or at minimum simply get more food into their diets," explains VanWalleghem.

Laird's concern and generosity seem to have no limit. "Since last cheque, I've probably spent $50 on meals for other people. Sometimes you get it back and sometimes you don't, but you don't stop helping people."

EVERY

S T A R T ~ ~ T6:30 EVERY DAY

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3 r E ~ A E U , ~ Sep. 12,1928 - Nov. 12,1998

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EVERY ~ - S ~ D A YON S THE SUPER 7: HOT POTS

$2

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O'UOOAV~IXBLE

N E R Y NiHTAT 8:X

C ~ E JE O ~ ~ ~ E - D & 8.77EAST HASTINGSST. '(cANCOUVER- PHONE 255-6966

Vema passed away on Nov. 12 after a long battle with cancer. She was a volunteer at Carnegie for several years. Vema was a dedicated radical and social activist, getting passionately involved with the fight to defeat a waterfront casino.

A Memorial will be held on November 22 in the J. Green Room of the Four Sisters Co-op, 133 Powell Sttret, from noon to 4 p.m.

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I ' V E GOT THE MUSIC G.Gust I've got the music.

I've got food in the fridge And enough mney t o last the mth.

What's Ia%Sing?

I feel its lack But u n k n n its name.

Is it f a , Is it love, Is it escape t o another place?

Sleep till the d a n g , Ccarmon sense preys me; Let the knowing can? by fate.

If possessed by luck o r not, I've got the music, So sour and s t .

MUNDANE REWLTIVITY

GHOST ART G.Gust

-Gust

You know you're old when you can vividly remember astronauts landing on the ocean when they returned fran space -they called it a "splash down."

Oldness is nothing new. We all see it fran different perspectives of time. But know you're getting old is a rich sensation to of certainty caused by the slow that nast people look younger than you.

You know you're old when you see a child on a rainy day purposely d l d n g through a puddle, instead of around it, and understand why they chose that course of action. You Ere that child once -you needed t o discover the joy of a welcaning experience.

O l k is finding your reflection in the behavior of children and feeling a d e in your heart because even tho' you might not remember, you've already done what they 're doing now. They are your echo. Thqr are the Spring leaves t h a t keep a l i v e your artcient tree of life.

The a c t o r s r e h e a r s e .

The weeks e l a p s e .

Everyone's set f o r t h e audience.

But t h e s e a t s r e m a i n c o l d Upturned i n t h e i r f o l d ; S t i l l t h e play runs t h r u ' entirely, Night after n i g h t And S a t u r d a y twice The r o l e s are h a l l o w l y played.

The p u r p o s e i s s u c h To show o n e ' s w o r t h And p r o v e o n e i s a n artist.

POSITION WANTED Highly touted actor available.

Will do cannercials o r stunt work.

Contact: J o e Camel @ browser www dot can.

Voting and Class War Political parties are a second level of power in Canada. In his book The Canadian Establishment, Peter Newman said our economy was controlled by a group of perhaps a thousand businessmen who acted as a kind of informal junta. Ths is the first level of power.

Eric Kierans and Walter Stewart documented this concentration of corporate power in their book Wrong End of the Rainb-ow- the collapse of free enternrise in Canada. They showed that although there were 534,692 corporations in Canada in 1984, just COO of them controlled over twothirds of total corporate profits. They also stated thzt 9 families controlled 46% of the value of all the shares of the 300 most important companies on the 'Toronto Stock Exchange (~ierans,y.7) "We live in a corporate world," Kierans concluded.

Corporations and well-funded business lobby machines like the Rminess Council on National Issues, the Fraser Institute and the C.D. Howe Institute put enormous pressure on governments by lobbymg and by controlling campaign funds.

At the same time, corporations, through advertising revenue or ownership, control most of the media in Canada. As Jim Wallis pointed out in Sojourners Magazine (Sep.92), "The media decides which pcoplc, groups and opinions to makc recognizable to the...public, and then conduct their own polls to see which are most recognizable. They call that public opinion, and then they have the audacity to say they're just following it.

Powerful vested interests, the expense of political campaigns, image-makers...television sound bites, and poll-driven politics all combine to institutionalize a process run by insiders (the corporate elite) and characterized by deception and hypocrisy."

Not much room for democracy here.

In a corporate-driven world there is no public language to express the common good. One result is widespread cynicism in politics. We feel that political parties, once in office, will break their

promises to ordinary citizens. We feel, therefore, that voting has become nearly m e q l e s s .

Money ha5 become more powerfid than the vote.

The most creative politics are happenmg outside the framework of political parties. The peace movement, the environmental movement, the feminist movement and the social justice movement (think of all the groups that are fightmg for justice) have all spoken strongly in support of an I

r YOU'RE GOING ' KEEP CAKING MY CAR

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A PUAWC SYMBOL, I'LL J W HAVE TO BUY A BIGGER CAR.

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equitable and sustainable world. They all recognize that everything's connected, everything is in relationship. It's impossible to do just one thlng.

Try explaining that to someone gambling on international currencies.

Social movments challenge the attitude that the whole of life can be referred to the market. They know that although mathematics is the language of technology and business, it is not the language &human experience. They would agree that kargaret Thatcher's statement "There is no society, only individuals." is insane, for to be an individual is to be part of a group. They respect their kinship to nature, work for the common good, and believe that human rights should take precedence over property rights. They use the vote when it furthers their cause, but their main struggle is getting people involved in the s t n i d e

for a better world on a day to clay bass.

When social movements combine with an enlightened labour movement that has moved beyond the framework of business as usual, a fbrce will exist in the world strong enough to challenge business dominance

By SANDY CAMEF.ON

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Poverty Pimping in the DE First we got the CBC coming down here for a live broadcast on welfare day and making a spectacle of all of our lives for the viewing pleasure of the middle class.

Now we have the self-proclaimed Odd Squad -- Vancouver police constables who are making a name for themselves by videotaping scenes of misery, violence and death that, according to them, are life in the Downtown Eastside.

Do any of these men actually live in the neighbourhood? It's more likely that they come here to go to work and then leave for the suburbs.. or the westside or even the east side.. but not to any hotel room or social housing around here.

How do you think the police would like it if camera crews went into their homes and taped them arguing with their wives, yelling at their kids, having ses, farting, belching, going to the bathroom? And then told us this was all about the police. Of course, that would only be half the story w o u l u t it.

That's just what the odd squad is doing to the Downtown Eastside. It's making a video about

half of what goes on here. The tragx half.

But what about the other half -- the solidarity, the beauty that is created by survival and caring?

What about people having fun, or relaxing or doing useful things, like the thousands of hours of volunteering that make t h s neighbourhood work?

You won't see that in these cops' video.

It's pretty easy to find examples of despair and grief in this neighbourhood. We see it all th.n time. Unlike uptown, or the westside, or Tswassen, it's all pretty much out in the open here. Just about everyone reading this will know people who have died from ODs, AIDS, traffic accidents, diabetes, booze, or been injured in assaults or mugging~,etc.

What's really important about this place is that in the middle of all that, in spite of it all, mallbe even because of it, there is beauty and caring, solidarity, creativity, community. There is not only anger and sadness, there is also happiness and joy.

Finding those things means you have to work at it. You have to get to know people. You have to be their friend, instead of just some guy in uniform. You have to hang around when you aren't at work. And, you have to actually know the neighbourhood and see what's really going on behind the appearances.

So what's the point of the video? Who is it meant for? Is it educational?

It certainly doesn't educate anyone who lives or works in the Downtown Eastside. We live with this.

And how does it count as education by telling everyone else -- all the people who don't live down here -- the same thing they get told about

this neghbourhood over and over and over again'?

Will it tell them anything about your life? Not too likely. It's just the same old poomography.

Since the middle of the 1800s, the middle class has been titillated by accounts, always made by other middle class people, of the lives of the people of the inner city. It's kind of like watching a National Geographic TV show. You can be a tourist without ever leaving your living room. It makes life much more comfortable.

The people who write (and now film) these accounts almost always make their reputations by doing it. They become 'experts' on the poor, getting prestige and status and jobs for their special knowledge.

Meanwhile, for the people whose lives they've turned into a spectacle, well life just goes on.

That what I call poverty pimping.

By E.A. BOYD

operates in the complete absence of regulation.

Thus,costs are low and consumption keeps growing as more stores open in the neighburhood. organized This first annual wine tasting tour because serious approaches have not resulted in action by politicians and regulators to alleviate the problem. For over a decade, the sale of rice wine, an often lethal substance, has remained unresolved. Merchants purchase the high alcohol substance at $1.25 per bottle and sell it for anywhere from $2 to $6 each. Such transactions are often under-the-table, so no taxes are paid.

Rice wine is as easily available as cocaine in the streets of our neighbowhood and it causes at least as much pain. It's responsible, directly and indirectly, for countless deaths and irreparable damage to liver, brain, kidney and throat.

Downtown Eastside residents are fed up with the free and open sales of this legal drug, whch is encouraged by City and Provincial policies.

This is the second event in a long term campaign to regulate sales of rice wine. Other cities and Provinces have already taken serious action on this issue. Why can't Vancouver and British Columbia join them?

was

WINE TASTING TOUR OF THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE ON FRIDAY, November 13&,residents and workers in the Downtown Eastside conducted a tour of some of the neighbourhood's finest wine cellars. Participants had the opportunity to visit some of the many purveyors of imported rice wine and sample all the flavours of this 38% alcohol, 2% salt libation.

Mayor Philip Owen and City Councillors were all invited on the tour, as well as Vancouver-Mt. Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan, Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh, Liquor Control and Licensing Commission Chairperson Paul White, Liquor Control & Licensing Board official Dennis Whyte and a number of other officials. Food editors ftom the two local daily newspapers were also invited.

The Downtown Eastside's flourishing wine selling business is one of the most unique in Canada -- it

FOR MORE I N F O M T I O N , COMACT: Tom Laviolette at 689-0397 or Margaret Prevost at pager # 293-5981

A Word on Stat~stlcs

by Wislawa Szymborska

Out of ever hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.

Always good, Unsure of every step: because they cannot be otherwise: almost all the rest. four -- well, maybe five.

Ready to help, Able toadmire without envy: if it doesn't take long: eighteen. forty-nine.

Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty.

Living in constant tear of someone or something: seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure.

Cruel when forced by circumstances: it's better not to know, not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight: not many more than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things: thirty (though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just: quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand: three.

InThe Dumpster blnner@vcn. bc.ca

Greetings fellow binners and binnerettes.

Here is the Christmas Bureau voucher list:

* Families can go to 1370 Napier St , (Nov. 12-30) Singles can go to the Salvation Army on Dunsn~uir. (Nov 30-Dec. 18) For more infomiationn, phoe 872-7676

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May The Bins Be With You .. and hey! let's be careful out there

MR. McBINNER

Worthy of empathy: ninety-nine.

Mortal : one hundred out of one hundred-a figure that has never varied yet.

the neurotic

Park Place

There is a woman named Pat who works in Park tangled up struggling Place.

She's worked in that restaurant for 48 years in a web of neurosis - since she was a child - and is right across from with the lights out Oppenheimer Park. thrashingabout Pat has seen many changes over the years but she you got to be some said to me it's the people that come through who kind of saint she loves and appreciates the most. to meditate on She is selllng her business and just wants to hastings street thank everybody for the good times over the years. the sidewalk seems to surely spiral down it's Doris Leslie a den of spiders weaving a fine place to come &Id get carrgfh i've known some street bhuddas they're the lowest of the low insane by all accounts CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE without a living room HIVIAIDS SUPPORT GROUP breathing in and out i7vealways thought someday i'd float away too still relaxing falling from the sticky silken thread i'm afraid bit i'm caught up afraid i'm temfied now wow we need i don't have what it takes 7;*q domestication 'p Weekly to be the nuttiest nut with and all the homes are full 3, .4Thursdays, 6:00 8:00 p.m. a b w by @ f, ; the garbage i'd better move out while i've still time Carnegie Community Centre i need to get out and front teeth 401 Main Street dying beautiful losers The Pottery Room or sitting alone flock here to die (Lane Level) in my room but that's not stay off the street the only reason that i'm ht -%f tell parents to tell there's some other reason ?,*j: Open Meeting it's a hard row to hoe i am here EVERYONE FEL.COME and costs everything Jericho "4

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DOWNTOWN STD CLINIC 219 Main; Monday Friday, 10 a.m. 6 p.m.

NEEDLE EXCHANGE 221 Main; 8:30 a.m. 8 p.m. every day EASTSIDE NEEDLE EXCHANGE VAN 3 Routes YOUTH City 5:45 p.m. 11:45 p.m.

Nancr W.-$100 ACTIVITIES Overnight 12:30 a.m. 8:30 a.m.

Agnes - $9 SOCIETY Val A -SKI Downtown Eastside 5:30 p.m. 1:30 a.m.

5 $1998

DONATIONS P a u l a R.-$10

Neil N.-$20

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l l e l e n e S.-$18

Wm. B.-$32

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J o y T.-$18 3 * ,Charley 0.-$15 O" t i b b y D.-$50 Sam R.-$40 . R l c k Y.-$45 Sttaron 5.-$30 BCCW -$25 Ray-Cam - $ I 0 .

H a r o l d D.-$20 ID Sonya S.-$80 l a n c y 11.-$35 J e n n i f e r M.-$15 w o Srenda Y.$IO I

Bill G -$IOU I R o ~ EA.-$25 B r u c e 5.-$14 BCTF $12 Sabltra -$I5 Susan S . - $ 7 M a r g a r e t D.-$20 DEY AS -5 1 LO PRIDE - $ 5 0 Pam 0.- 20 50 CEEllS

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THE NEWSLETTER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles represent the views of contributors and not of the Associlon.

' Friday, November 27.

Prime Minister Chretien has intimated that pepper spray is a safe tool for deallng with crowds. Let's look at the facts. (1) Pepper spray is oleoresin capsicum (OC). It is an - irritant based on extracts from chili pepper. As a plant toxin, it is banned from use in war by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, but not from internal security use Pepper spray can cause temporaay blitldness which can last from 15 to 30 minutes, a burning sensation to the skin which can last Irom 45 to 60 minutes, upper body spasms, and uncontrollable coughmg-makmg it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 and 15 minutes.

For people with asthma, or those using drugs or medications, there is a risk of death. The Los Angeles Times reports at least 61 deaths associated with the police use of pepper spray since 1990 in the United States, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has documented 27 deaths of people sprayed with pepper spray since 1993 in California alone.

Pepper spray is widely used in Canada and the United States but, so far, it has not seen widespread use in Europe.

The US Amy concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause "mutagenic effects, carcinogenic effects... cardiovascular ad pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities.

There is a risk in using this product on a large and

varied population."

Despite the reservations of US military scientists pepper spray go the go-ahead after FBI tests gave it the all clear. It was later revealed that the head of the FBI's Less-Than-Lethal Weapons Program, Special Agent Thomas Ward, took a $57,000 bribe from a pepper spray nlanufacturer to give the Zarc product Capstun the all clear.

The south California branch of the ACLU tried to have pepper spray withdrawn. Berkeley's Police Commission voted to have a 60-day morat~riumon it. The ACLU asked the FBI to retract'and rescind all research documentation.

Allan ~arachiniof the ACLU said, "The Ward scandal in some ways exceeds the Rodney King beatlng in terms of its potential impact on law enforcement, since FBI research helped convince police departments across the country (and in all other countries) that -pepper spray .- and - - was a safe effective way to subdue suspects."

The effects of pepper spray are so severe that some companies have started to market decontamination wipes to meet "post application requirements which in turn reduces the potential for litigation."

The working paper "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control", from whlch the information in thls article has been taken, recommends a European Parliament moratorium on the acquisition, sale and deployment of pepper spmy until independent research is undertaken on its safety and published in the scientific press for peer review.

By SANDY CAMERON (1) The information in harticle is taken from a A

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working paper of the European Parliament called An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control 6.3536). It was published by the European Parliament, Scientific and Technological Options Assessment Programme (STOA), January 6, 1998. The author was Steve Wright. To get a hard copy of the report, send a fa,to STOA inn Luxembourg - Fax number 352-430022418. The document is archived at Cryptome: hr,://jya.com/crypbo.htm

A way out of a real fix We've all seen the images: a heroin user stumbles down an alley. a hotel washroom with spent needles tossed about on the floor, a rep xter asks an addict to explain what a speedball is. It's the Downtown Eastside, the drug centre of th : Lower Mainland, and we're all supposed to be horrified.

Of course we're never reminded that this is actually a community - of retired loggers and dockworkers, of off-reserveFirst Nations people, of mirrants, of people - - with mental and physical d~sabilities,of the economically marginalised and yes, of hardcore drug add~cts.

The City of Vancouver would rather you didn't think about it that way. LJnder the city's zoning bylaws, Kenisdale, Fairwew, Strathcona and Kitsilano all enjoy community status The Downtown Eastside, however, is not a community, it's a bwiness zone, and the people living there are just guests staying at the area's numerous hotels.

So the drug problem, for the city, is temporary.

As the guests check out the addicts will disappear..and all the better that they disappear into a non-community where no one will know or > care. They're all a bunch of addicts too, right?

The solution until now has been one of containment - keeping the addicts away from everybody else. Of course, now that policy is changing - it's become a matter of hiring more cops to arrest the immigrant dealers with the nerve to venture outside the zone.

Maybe it's time to reconsider hard drugs and the people addicted to them. It's time to see addicts not as loathsome, downcast bums, but as people with health problems.

The problem is heroin is the strongest known painkiller, and it's cheap. It's used to escape memories of trauma or abuse, but a lot of its users die. That fate has a lot to do with our drug policy.

To combat similar problems, the German government introduced safe injection sites in Frankfurt, bringing about a decline in lethal overdoses from 147 in 1991 to 31 in 1997. Now the NDP Provincial Council is faced with a similar proposal for Vancouver but safe injection sites alone will solve nothing.

If we're serious about shifting drug policy from law enforcement to harm reduction, we have to commit to hard drug prescription programs for addicts, and detox, recovery and rehab programs for those who want them. In the long term we have to find solutions for a housing situation that

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currently sees up to 20 people sharing one bathroom and paylng $500 a month for a dilapidated, eight foot by eight foot room.

Inn other words, we've got to commit to the Downtown Eastside community as a whole, not just to its drug-using population. Drug abuse, after all, is part of a cycle of escaping a hopeless situation to a strong mind-altering substance.

If we're going to embrace harm reduction, we need to come to a difficult conclusion. We need to acknowledge that for many people, hard drugs are a choice, even a way of life. These drugs aren't going to be conquered by the war we're waging against them.

Therein lies the real problem - political will. A dope addict doesn't make a good poster child. We can't count on our politicians supporting this idea. The success or failure of harm reduction is going to depend on whether a lot of people are willing to make a lot of noise. And the sooner we start, the better.

(This appeared as an editorial in Ubwsevl

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* If you want to promote the dynamism of community, organise and fight for principles Neighbouthood News It's arrogant to presume that more than the tip of stuff happening in the Downtown Eastside could be gotten here in the Camegie Newsletter. It's just as arrogant for the daily press and TV to give you their version, after it goes through selection and editing according to the powers-that-be * If you want to promote gentrification, to get the middle class and wealthy to assert their birthright to safe and upscale and trendy habitats, show the targeted area as a blighted toilet, current residents as uniformly degenerate, keep interest focused on the worst problem and present the experts only as backing up the immediate and overwhelming plan.

What? LISTEN: This area is prime real estate that we (sic) want! Show only the worst, keep drugs 8z drink as the only issues, make it out to be the armpit of BC. Get all hot and squirmy, make "Downtown Eastside" equal "Skid Road'', work hard to create and exacerbate any disputes, differences of opinion, personality conflicts or whatever into life or death confrontations. "Division weakens" quote /unquote.

41 1 Seniors Centre; Adult Learning Disabilities Associatiorr, AIDS Vancouver; Battered Women's Support Service; BC Coalition of People with Disabilities; Camege Community Action Project; Camegie Community Centre Associatim, Camegie Community Centre; Catholic Charities; Co-op Racho; Coa5t Foundation; Community Care Teams; Community Health Coalition; Crabtree Comer; Door Is Open; Downtown East Education Centre; Downtown Eastside Community Health Chic; Downtown Eastside Handicapped Association; Downtown Eastside Mental Health Network; Downtown Eastside Residents Association; Downtown Eastside Seniors Centre; Downtown Eastside Women's Centre; Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society; Drake Street Cliruc; Dugout; Elders' Network; End Legislated Poverty; Evelyne Saller Centre; First United Church;

Four Comers Community S a ~ g s ; Franciscan Sisters o f the Atonement; Gathering Place; Helping Spirit Lodge; High Risk; Kate Booth H o ~ s e ; Kettle Friendship Society; La Eoussole; La Quena; Legal Services Society; Living Room; Lookout; Main&Hastings Community Development Sock ty; Mental Patients Association; Mission Possible; Native Liaison Society; Needle Exchange; Neighbourhood Helpers' Project; Neighbourhood Safety Office; P.R.I.D.E.; Powell Place; Prostitution Altertratives Counselhng & Education; Rape Relief; RayCo-op Centre; Salvation Army Crosswalk & Harbour Light; Sheway; St.Jarnes Social Services;

Strathcona Community Centre; Strathcona Mental Health Team; Street Onentation Services; Street Youth S e ~ c e s ; Tenants' Qhts Action C d t i o n ; Triage; Union Gospel Mission; United We Can; Vancouver Aboriginal Centre Society; Vancouver Area Network o f Drug Users ; Vancouver Native Health Society; Vancouver Native Housing; Venture; Victim's Services; Watari Alcohol & Drug Strategy; Women Against Violence Against Women; Workmg Women's Drop-In; Youth Action Coahtion; Youth Detox; ... it's

a start.

* Rhetoric gets to ya, but the dogma of development and the dogma of dispersal is all about being judgmental.

Dogma is bad theory, presented as truth.

PRT November 13-December 6,1998 OPENING GATHERING-November 15, 1 4 m Live music and words with Bud Osborn & T e Lonesome Monsters, a free lunch serving, and meet the exhibiting artists.

PANEL DISCUSSION-November 14, 1 4 p m The media'srole in forming perceptionsof the Downtown Eastside.

Moderated by David Beers, with Bud Osborne, Sheila Baxter, a Vancouver Sun Editor, and others to be announced.

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EXHIBlTlON--seeks to challenge the stereotypes of people living in the Downtown Eastside, particularly as depicted throu h the conventions of the Media and photojournalism. Facing t f e Eastside is a collaboration between the Portland Hotel Society, Photographer Christopher Crabowski, and the Roundhouse Community Centre. The exhibition includes photographic ortraits of people living in neighbourhoods east of the poundhouse. in the Downtown Eastside, plus visual art b poetry.

Facing the Eastside has been funded by the B.C. Arts Council, Vancouver Foundation, Hamber Foundation, Vancouver Park Board, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Society and Gamma Pro Imaging. Thanks to all those who participated!

at the Roundhouse Community Centre 181 Roundhouse Mews,Vancouver, V6Z 2W3 Ph 71 3-1800 Located on the old Expo site @ Pacific Boulevard between Drake & Davie St. Bus #1 or #2. From D. Eastside walk past Plaza of Nations, west on Pacific.