The Canadian Police Association is urging the federal government to cut off all support for the controversial safe injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Delegates to the association's annual general meeting in Victoria passed the motion unanimously on Friday.

Vancouver's safe injection site opened in September 2003.
Vancouver's safe injection site opened in September 2003.
(CBC)
"We've created this enabling environment that's resulted in a sense of entitlement among drug addicts," said Const. Tom Stamatakis, president of the Vancouver Police Association and vice-president of the national association.

The safe injection site may have been a well-intentioned effort, he says, but it hasn't worked out as planned.

"This harm-reduction focus has led to unprecedented levels of crime in our city. Our citizens are saying that they don't feel safe," Stamatakis said.

The clinic in the Downtown Eastside gets more than 600 visits a day by intravenous drug users.
The clinic in the Downtown Eastside gets more than 600 visits a day by intravenous drug users.
(CBC)
As more officers were moved into the Downtown Eastside after the clinic opened, crime rates there did drop, he said. However, he added that's been offset by an increase in crime elsewhere in the city. 

"We can say that we reduced property crime in the Downtown Eastside area by 16 per cent, but if it's increased by 47 per cent in another neighbourhood where a lot of these people have been displaced to, then how are we calling that a success?"

Feds face deadline

The federal government faces a Sept. 12 deadline to renew an exemption to Sec. 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Friday's motion says the government should invest instead in a national strategy to combat drug addiction.

The association represents 54,000 rank-and-file police officers across the country.

The Vancouver Police Department has thrown its support behind the safe injection site. However, the RCMP recently said it was not supporting the clinic.

The clinic, which opened in September 2003, gets more than 600 visits a day. There have been hundreds of overdoses at the facility, but no deaths thanks to the trained staff.

There are an estimated 5,000 intravenous drug users in the troubled neighbourhood.