Pubdate: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Suzanne Fournier Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance) DRUG-TORN FAMILY SEEKS LAW REFORM Crack, Cocaine And Heroin Are Delivered All Over The City Canadian senators sat spellbound yesterday as the handsome scion of an affluent family told how he became addicted in high school to heroin and cocaine that were easy to buy in his Kerrisdale neighbourhood. With his mother Nichola at his side, 21-year-old Ross Hall told a Senate committee reviewing drug laws that he's now on methadone maintenance and hasn't used cocaine for two weeks. Without the support of his parents, with whom he now lives, "I'd have no hope. I'd be a goner," said Hall. "There is nothing for children or teenagers using hard-core drugs who want to kick it and get their lives back." Ross's older brother is also recovering from heroin addiction. "Any parent knows how hard it is to separate a teen from what they want to do," said Nichola Hall, speaking for a parents' group called From Grief to Action. "I and my husband and most members of our group feel they gave their children as good an upbringing as possible, but if I can look at any cause of what happened to my sons, it is perhaps because I was so opposed to drugs that they had to keep it secret from me. "It prevented open discussion and the disclosure early on of their drug use that might have prevented hard-core addiction." Despite her sons' battles with addiction, she urged the committee to decriminalize marijuana possession. "Alcohol is more regulated and controlled and therefore harder for young people to get than marijuana and we also feel decriminalization of marijuana would separate the users of pot from the pushers of hard drugs," said Nichola. Ross said he began buying marijuana in Grade 8 at his west-side private school. "It's far easier for a child to get marijuana than wait outside the liquor store to get alcohol," Ross told the committee, headed by Sen. Pierre-Claude Nolin, which is holding hearings across Canada. "Marijuana is being sold in all schools and the same dealer in most cases will eventually offer you heroin or cocaine." Asked how he got hooked on hard drugs, Ross replied: "The apathy and demoralization caused by marijuana helped break down the psychological barriers I had toward hard drugs. My brother was using by then and offered me heroin." Hall said crack, cocaine and heroin are delivered all over the city and that most teens begin hard-core addiction by smoking heroin. "I'd say at about one in five west-side high school parties, there will be some people smoking crack or heroin. It's common." Once addicted, Ross was expelled from high school and left home, turning to panhandling and petty crime to finance drug use. He said methadone maintenance now takes care of his craving for heroin, but not cocaine: "I can taste it and I start to sweat. "Only by sheer determination, by writing out on paper what the drug is telling me, and then using logic to think about the physical, emotional, social and spiritual harm the drugs cause, can I come to a rational decision not to use." Ross told the senators he favours decriminalizing marijuana, "so its use can be controlled and regulated and it's not being provided by a drug pusher," and making heroin and cocaine available to addicts at pharmacies and clinics. Nichola also deplored the dearth of treatment facilities for addicts, noting that Vancouver's two government-run detox centres have long waiting lists and "are useless to young heroin and cocaine addicts." There is an "extremely expensive" private detox centre, said Hall, but, "they kick people out halfway through if they think they won't make it, because it's bad for the centre's statistics." Ross said he hopes to be off methadone and drug-free within a year, then resume his studies. "We're not worthless junkies, or criminals," he said. "We're people with a disease who need help from the health system - --- MAP posted-by: Josh