In the Past Six Months, Addicts on Victoria Streets Have Found Access to Clean Needles Increasingly Difficult, Leaving Outreach Workers to Desperately Search for Ways to Prevent the Spread of Disease and Death. The Fifth in a Series of 10 Remarkable People, Places or Things

VICTORIA -- In the past six months, drug addicts in Victoria have misplaced more than 60,000 needles, proving the city's needle exchange program is, increasingly, a misnomer. Since public pressure led to the closing of a long-time storefront exchange site in May, AIDS Vancouver Island has tried to fill the gap with a mobile service, where outreach workers on foot and on bicycles roam the streets trying to find addicts in need of clean gear.

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To the Editor,

Re: Marijuana education must include all facts, Dec. 16.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program is an important tool for North America's government-subsidized discrimination of cannabis users as Russell Barth discloses.

Nearly every study, including government studies, indicate DARE is a failure and one reason is due to lies, half-truths and propaganda concerning marijuana.

Whether or not DARE is effective at keeping youth away from harmful substances doesn't matter to police - it helps increase union dues for law enforcement agencies who cry when DARE programs are threatened to end because of things like budget cuts.

Need proof? Read Budget Woes Kill Elgin's DARE Program at www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1139/a02.html

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

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Dear Editor:

Thanks for publishing Jerry Paradis' outstanding Dec. 17 column Doomed to Repeat History.

The American led war on drugs was doomed from the very beginning. Regardless of the money put into the anti-drugs program, we cannot nullify the basic supply and demand law of economics.

As long as people want to purchase recreational drugs and they are willing to pay a substantial price for them, somebody will produce the drugs and somebody else will get the drugs to the willing buyers.

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Residents of the Old City Quarter are getting a health clinic that includes a needle exchange on Franklyn Street whether they like it or not.

This issue is not about the clinic itself. No one, since this issue first came to light earlier this month, has raised an objection to the clinic itself.

We all acknowledge and agree on the importance of providing health care to those people on the street and managing contagious diseases.

Where this process goes wrong is on the lack of consultation by the Vancouver Island Health Authority. According to Mayor John Ruttan VIHA admitted during a meeting on Monday they failed on that count.

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Crystal methamphetamine is a stimulant produced in labs from ingredients readily available in drug and hardware stores.

It is becoming a drug of choice among teens because it is easily to find and inexpensive.

It may be ingested, snorted or smoked. The latter gives an instant high.

Users report a high level of energy, absence of fatigue and enhanced performance - hence its street name, speed.

Problems associated with using crystal meth may include paranoid and violent behaviour, nervousness, distractibility and difficulty focusing and remembering.

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The Oceanside Star wishes to apologize for and retract the Dec. 11 editorial 'Drug houses make for bad neighbours.'

The editorial stated that the house in question was the residence of Geoffrey Cross, who was murdered Dec. 6. The police have since stated that the house on Riley Road was not the residence of Cross but that he resided with his mother.

The extent of Cross's involvement with the drug house or the two men charged in his murder remains to be determined.

The Star apologizes to Cross's family and friends and thanks them for communicating their concerns to us.

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Paul Ruiterman (Legal drugs the most frequent killers, study finds, Question, Dec. 18) got a bull's-eye exposing one facet of North America's drug problems. Now let's expose what is not legal: cannabis (marijuana). The relatively safe, socially acceptable, God-given plant cannabis hasn't killed anyone in over 5,000 years of documented use, yet it is classified along with heroin and more dangerous than meth or coke.

And there's part of the problem. Prohibitionist government's lies, half-truths and propaganda insisting cannabis is so bad has the effect of creating contempt toward warnings of highly addictive and deadly drugs.

How many adults try cannabis and realize it's not nearly as harmful as taught in DARE-type government environments and think other substances must not be so bad either, only to become addicted to deadly substances?

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

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The ongoing saga of the Holy Smoke Four continued this week, as the sentencing of co-accused Alan Middlemiss and Kelsey Stratas was held over until early in the new year.

Middlemiss and Stratas, two of the four men convicted in September of trafficking marijuana from The Holy Smoke shop on Baker Street, were scheduled to be sentenced to jail time yesterday.

But Don Skogstad, lawyer for the men, said he requested to have the sentencing held over to keep the two men from doing excess time in prison before they're released to await an appeal.

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'We Couldn't Stop It If We Wanted To,' Says Nanaimo's Mayor

Despite lack of consultation by the Vancouver Island Health Authority, a controversial health clinic and needle exchange will move to a new location in the new year.

After a long meeting on Monday between city officials, VIHA and the Nanaimo Area Resource Services for Families, which will run the clinic, a news release said everything but the clinic will move from Cavan Street despite opposition from surrounding businesses.

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If we don't like the proposed location of a new needle exchange, we need to come up with an alternative one. Since the exchange is only open for a few hours, three times a week, why not locate it at the hospital?

We already have two other agencies that are mobile.

With VIHA's outreach program (Monday to Friday) and Tillicum Haus (Thursday) home delivery needle service, are there not enough agencies engaged in this harm reduction practice downtown already?

James Younger

Nanaimo

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Bill Oliver tells Mr. Lauzon to take off his rose coloured glasses.

What colour are Mr. Oliver's? Meth abuse has been documented in several states in the USA of creating or causing 85% of criminal activity. What is interesting is that meth production can be eliminated completely by banning the key ingredient found in cough remedies and manufactured by only three major corporations world-wide. Some states have already banned this ingredient.

Drug Endangered Children Laws have been adopted in numerous states and the province of Alberta. I urge all Canadians to demand DEC laws in Canada and a national ban on this ingredient. Maybe, together we can stop the hemorraging and have the resources to clean up the mess. There is nothing worse then looking in a small child's mouth and seeing extensive dental work as a result of meth exposure.

Sincerely

Alan David Schmegelsky Founder DADDYK (Dads Assisting Drug Damaged Youth and Kids)

Port Alberni

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OK, Prince George, Speak Up.

The RCMP wants to hear from residents about how drugs and the drug trade have affected their lives.

As reported in Friday's Citizen, the information received from the public will form what the police are calling a community victim-impact statement, which will be presented in court before sentencing of those convicted of drug-related offences in the city.

It's an expanded version of the usual victim-impact statements which are presented in court by individuals personally affected by a criminal's actions.

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I would like to respond to the proposed Franklyn Street clinic.

My advice to business owners, fight this proposal. If you allow it into your neighbourhood nothing will ever be the same.

I was a property and business owner on Victoria Road, close to the methadone clinic and needle exchange. I can tell you from experience that open drug dealing, drug use, prostitution and in your face sex acts will become common place.

Loitering by some very scary looking people will also become common place. Daily removal of needles, condoms, tampons and squatters will become common place.

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Re: Relocation of Health Clinic, (Your Letters, Daily News, Dec. 16)

For the benefit of Mr. Strickland and others not present at the SAFER meeting, the following summarizes concerns addressed by NARSF Programs regarding Harris House Health Clinic.

The clinic is not located next to a school. The closest is one kilometre away.

Needle exchange is not the sole or primary function of the clinic. Services are comprehensive and focused on providing support, counselling and information regarding physical and sexual health care, disease prevention, and referral to other services.

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As People Find Times Harder, They Are Willing To Do More Illegal Things To Make A Buck, SFU Professor Says

Some Canadians facing economic hard times could be more willing to risk involvement in criminal activity out of financial desperation, experts in organized crime say.

Criminal groups in B.C. and across Canada can use that desperation to weather the current recession better than legitimate businesses, police specialists and an academic told The Vancouver Sun.

But the growing number of criminal organizations can also be hurt by a stalled economy, Simon Fraser University Professor Stephen Easton said.

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Nanaimo RCMP's Green Team did some early Christmas shopping to grab suspects, cash, weapons and marijuana in six weeks of operations in south Nanaimo.

Const. Gary O'Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman, said the team worked 25 cases resulting in 14 search warrants.

The inventory of confiscated goods included 1,257 marijuana plants, 25 kilograms of dried marijuana, 150 hydroponic lights, $120,000 in Canadian cash, $10,000 in U.S. cash, one silver bar worth about $1,200, two shot guns and a .22 calibre rifle.

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VANCOUVER -- The RCMP say a Vancouver man will be behind bars for almost two decades after being sentenced for his role in an international drug smuggling ring.

Police say Yong Long Ye's illicit activities stretched to several countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan and India.

Supt. Pat Fogarty, of the RCMP's Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Friday Ye was operating wherever he could fetch the best price for drugs.

"One down and a thousand more to go," Fogarty said of the year-long investigation that involved several police agencies around the globe.

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Three cheers to the residents of the Riley Road area, just across Parksville's northern border in French Creek, for getting together to talk about the drug house in their neighbourhood -- and for inviting the police to their meeting.

Police don't want vigilantes but you get the feeling they're sometimes mystified why people are so quick to say 'help me' and so slow to help themselves.

This meeting lets each resident know they're not alone and it gets the police and the neighbours on the same page.

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THE Editor:

To the Kwalikum Secondary School student forced by the courts to write an obviously insincere letter to the press, I certainly hope one day you will be as angry as I am at a system which treats marijuana, a healing herb which has been used for thousands of years, as some kind of heinous crime. I also hope you will realize that you have been used and violated by the same system, and join other Canadians working to abolish racist drug laws.

Tim Meehan, Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis

Toronto

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Drunk driving is down, but drugged driving is higher, says a report by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

The 2008 B.C. Roadside Survey found that while fewer people were driving after drinking, more drivers tested positive for drugs.

A study of 1,500 drivers found that 10 per cent of nighttime drivers tested showed evidence of drug use, while eight per cent tested positive for alcohol.

A full 17 per cent tested positive for drugs, alcohol or both. "The good news is that drinking and driving appeared to be on the decline in the samples we collected," said Doug Beirness, senior research and policy analyst at the centre and lead researcher for the survey.

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