Pubdate: Wed, 26 Oct 2005
Source: St. Albert Gazette (CN AB)
Copyright: 2005 St. Albert Gazette
Contact:  http://www.stalbertgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2919
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

ADDICTS NEED HELP, NOT NEW LAWS

Imagine, if you can, a grimy, rundown apartment in Edmonton's inner
city. Scattered among the debris are plates covered in the congealed
remains of yesterday's fast food. Drug paraphernalia litters an old,
scarred coffee table in the middle of the room. In one corner of the
chaos, a woman sits, droopy eyed, her mind somewhere else. In another
room, just as dirty, a two-year-old lies on the floor of a playpen.

He hasn't been fed or picked up in a few hours.

He's too tired to cry anymore.

A half hour's drive away, in one of St. Albert's more affluent
neighbourhoods, you could eat from the floor just vacuumed and washed
by the cleaning lady who comes twice a week. Here, a two-year-old has
just finished a healthy lunch with something from each of the five
food groups. Soon, the live-in nanny will take the toddler to the park
before putting him down for an afternoon nap. The mother, meanwhile,
is on her third or fourth alcoholic beverage of the day. While the
child sleeps, Mom will have another drink or two before taking a nap
of her own and the nanny will prepare the evening meal. Mom's still
buzzed over dinner, washed down with a couple glasses of wine. Dad
doesn't notice before he disappears into his office to catch up on
paperwork.

Two addicts, two very different families.

The inner city mom has no surrogate mother to care for her
child.

She uses illegal street drugs and has very little contact with anyone
other than her dealer and the men for whom she does favours in
exchange for money.

Here in St. Albert, the mother has plenty of help, no money problems
and her drug of choice can be purchased at the local liquor store.

Which one do you think will be targeted by an Alberta government
initiative to seize children from parents who are either addicted to
drugs or involved in the drug trade?

The answer's obvious.

Alberta's Children's Services Minister Heather Forsyth is developing
legislation, expected to be introduced next spring, which will allow
the government to remove children from their homes if parents are
involved in a marijuana grow op, involved in a meth house, if there is
drug trafficking from the home or if there is drug use.

There are several things wrong with this drastic initiative, which
would be the first of its kind in Canada. First, it does nothing to
help the addicted parents.

Second, it's a law that would not be applied evenly across our
society.

And finally, we don't even need it, because Children's Services
already has ample power to remove from their homes children thought to
be at risk of abuse or neglect or in need of protection for any other
reason.

And under the Criminal Code, delinquent parents can be charged with
child abandonment if the child is under 10 (Section 217) and with
criminal negligence (Section 219).

We welcome any attempt to fight the war on dangerous street drugs, but
the proposed Drug Endangered Children's Act has nothing to do with
attempts to get crystal meth and other hard drugs off our streets.

Money and resources devoted to this initiative would be better spent
on addictions recovery programs, increased law enforcement and more
social workers to help enforce the child protection laws we already
have. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake