IN THE NEWS

 

Lack of access to detox and rehab beds for addicts is a key complaint of counsellors (and addicts themselves) across B.C.

The province has just 900 residential facility beds for drug and alcohol abusers who want help. Only 75 of them are for youths.

Brenda Locke, Minister of State for Mental Health and Addiction Services, says that's not enough -- when the need for young people is "acute."

Cpl. Scott Rintoul, of the RCMP drug awareness section, agrees: "Are we equipped to handle detox? No, we don't have enough [beds]."

His solution? "Increase detox, increase treatment and make both available on demand."

Dr. Bill MacEwan, who runs the psychosis program at St. Paul's Hospital and routinely tours meth hot spots in the downtown core, says more resources for treatment and detox are needed -- "period."

But MacEwan adds that it is especially important when treating meth addicts to understand that the drug can cause intense mental problems.The ability to help addicts with both the addiction and the mental illness is critical.

Some facilities are reluctant to accept patients with dual diagnosis, he says.

"We definitely need more planning and more beds around that," says MacEwan. "It's a real dearth."

Locke says the B.C. government is looking at developing a plan to increase the number of long-term residential-care treatment homes for youth.

That plan will also examine where in B.C. the homes are needed most.

Squamish, for example, with a population of close to 15,000 in 2003, doesn't have a single rehab bed for adults or youth -- at a time when demand is increasing every year.

The Youth Empowerment Society in Victoria, with five beds, is the only youth facility on Vancouver Island. Young people there can wait for more than a month to get a slot.

Young people between the ages of 14 and 29 are specifically identified as an at-risk group in the provincial government's August 2004 Crystal Meth and Other Amphetamines: An Integrated BC Strategy. The strategy makes no specific reference to increased funding for rehabilitation services, despite the fact that the system is under tremendous strain.

In 1999, 933 British Columbian men and women sought community addiction services for amphetamine misuse (four per cent of the total number of admissions to addictions services). By 2003, that number had jumped to 1,687, or 11 per cent of the total.

Admissions by region show a staggering growth in amphetamine abuse.

In the Fraser Health Authority area, for example, 498 people were admitted in 1999, 766 in 2003.

Although she could not provide specifics, Locke says that beds in the Fraser Health Authority area will be increased "very shortly."

She points to wait times for adult detox centres as a key indicator of the government's progress in addressing the problem. It used to be that an addict seeking help from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority would have to wait six weeks; now they wait only two days, she says.

"For us, the biggest issue is prevention," Locke says. "We can always do more, there's no doubt about it."

Locke has had up-close experience of the needs of addicts. She was visiting a northern Vancouver Island care facility in February when a 21-year old woman in a detox program talked with her about her life for a full hour.

The woman described how her addiction to crystal meth had made her life as a single mom bearable, even as it made everything worse.

"She told me how ill she was, how she wanted to stop doing it. It was very tough on her," Locke says.

To have the courage to try to quit the only thing that brings you pleasure is a remarkable thing, Locke says.

"If you can do this, you can do anything."

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BARRIERS TO TREATMENT OF ADDICTS

Detox facilities are doing the best they can to meet meth addicts' needs, but often the behaviour of meth psychotics is simply too extreme to deal with, says Dr. Bill MacEwan.

MacEwan deals with meth psychotics every day in his role as head of the psychosis program at St. Paul's Hospital.

He says that typically, psychotics will hear voices, experience hallucinations and disjointed thought processes and be agitated, depressed or invigorated (depending on when they used).

Three of the five beds in the St. Paul's program usually are taken up by meth addicts, MacEwan says, and about 40 per cent of patients in the hospital's psychiatric ward are drug-induced psychotics.

MacEwan compares psychosis to a ride at Disneyland -- "in the dark, hurtling along at fast speeds, not knowing where you're going."

Addicts, he says, are often frightening. "They're unpredictable. Staff are very wary of them. They often are just all over the map emotionally . . . The kids will call it 'sketchy.' This person is capable of doing anything at any moment."

 

METH ADDICTION

Methamphetamine is taken orally or intranasally (snorting the powder), by intravenous injection, and by smoking. Immediately after smoking or intravenous injection, the methamphetamine user experiences an intense sensation, called a "rush" or "flash," that lasts only a few minutes and is described as extremely pleasurable. Oral or intranasal use produces euphoria -- a high, but not a rush. Users may become addicted quickly, and use it with increasing frequency and in increasing doses.

COMING UP:

Thursday

Experts agree prevention is the best cure for meth addiction, but disagree on the right approach.

Friday

Drug experts south of the border, where crystal meth is rampant, say the worst is yet to come in B.C.

Sunday

What you can expect if you attend one of our special community forums on meth (see panel, opposite page).

© The Vancouver Province 2005