Just weeks before the spotlight hits Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, a landmark medical study is set to begin, drawing attention to the one class of Vancouverites that the city doesn’t want to showcase: heroin addicts.

The four-year trial will provide 322 chronic addicts at a private Vancouver clinic with heroin or a legal substitute opiate, Hydromorphone.

“This could revolutionize heroin treatment internationally,” said Trish Walsh, executive director of the InnerChange Foundation. “It’s exciting to start this before the Olympics; we think it’s a great opportunity treat the root cause of homelessness in the Downtown Eastside.”

It took more than a year for study organizers to get regulatory approvals to import heroin and to gather the finances, which are coming in part from the private sector. A second clinic was planned for Montreal but without the authorization, the researchers decided to proceed with just one.

The research arm of Health Canada has approved the Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) as a way to examine alternate therapies for addicts who have not responded to conventional methadone treatment.

The researchers will attempt to determine if heroin addicts will accept an alternate narcotic that is legally available in Canada, and will examine if providing those drugs in a pill form, rather than by injection, is effective. If successful, Ms. Walsh said, it would be a groundbreaking new treatment in a field where few options are available, especially in Canada.

While the long-term goal is to help the addicts get off hard drugs, in the short term, the plan is to get them away from the more dangerous and troubling aspects of heroin addiction, such as committing crimes, sharing needles and shooting up in back alleys.

The clinical trial builds on an earlier Canadian heroin trial, the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI). The researchers found that participants who were given heroin in a clinic were healthier and committed fewer crimes to pay for their habits.

The results of NAOMI were published in the New England Journal of Medicine last August and garnered international media attention. A small portion of the participants in that study were given Hydromorphone to serve as a control group, and researchers were surprised to discover how effective it seemed to be. This study will test the drug more broadly to see if it can be proven to work as a substitute.

Ms. Walsh said the success of the NAOMI study will ensure this trial will be followed closely. “NAOMI showed there are solutions to helping to end the crisis in the Downtown Eastside,” she said.

But for a wider audience, there is considerable interest in a treatment that does not involve injection drugs. Being able to take a narcotic in pill form reduces the need for medical staff at the clinic, and also reduces the stigma when persuading policy makers to approve treatment funding.

Although there has been little encouragement from the federal government for Insite, Vancouver’s safe injection site, Ms. Walsh said the goal is to have heroin or Hydromorphone available as a treatment option.

“There are approximately 5,000 chronic addicts in the Downtown Eastside,” she noted. “So there is so much more we have to do. This is a very exciting trial, but the goal is to have this as a model for treatment in Vancouver and across Canada.”

In January, the research team will finalize the location of the Vancouver clinic and will begin consultations with stakeholders in the Downtown Eastside. They’ll begin taking applications for clients in February.

Participants must be adults and, as in the NAOMI trial, must be able to demonstrate that methadone treatment has failed them.

Kirby and Marie Fontaine have outfitted a hockey team and set their sights on a hot meal program at a school on Sagkeeng First Nation, about 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, following their Lotto Max win.

Claude Guimond, coach of the newly formed Sagkeeng 69s, said Kirby approached him shortly after the lottery win and suggested they put together a hockey team and hold a hockey tournament in memory of his late father.

Guimond, also the principal of the Sagkeeng Jr. High School, then rounded up 19 players who range in age from 16 to 40. They were transported in seven vans to Royal Sports on Pembina Highway in Winnipeg where they were outfitted with $50,000 worth of new equipment courtesy of the Fontaines.

“The reaction was just everyone was shocked — that he was willing to outfit the team, from top to bottom with top-of-the-line new gear. Everyone was floored,” said Guimond, whose 21-year-old son is also on the team.

Guimond said Kirby put one stipulation on the team members: that they be role models in the community — drug and alcohol free.

“The only thing Kirby asked of the boys was for them to lead a good life. Make good choices. Stay away from the alcohol and drugs, and give your old equipment away,” said Guimond.

Another resident from Sagkeeng said the Fontaines have done a number of good deeds since acquiring the winnings, such as purchasing furnished homes for their family members and beginning the planning stages of a daycare on the reserve. They have also been behind plans of a new recreational complex for youth.

The tournament is being planned for mid-March.

As well, the Fontaines have been making inquiries at a local school to take over the hot lunch program. According to school staff, the couple have said they don’t want anyone in the community to go hungry.

The school doesn’t want to be named until the Fontaines are ready to make the official announcement.

Students and staff at the Comp were recognized for their efforts to educate kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol earlier this week.

Representatives from the school, along with current and former students involved in organizing the Addictions Awareness Week, accepted the provincial Award of Distinction award on Nov. 16.

The award is handed out annually by the Manitoba Addictions Awareness Week (MAAW) committee to an individual or organization (including schools) for their outstanding work in raising awareness surrounding substance abuse, gambling, and other related issues.

Jan Harris, an Addictions Foundation of Manitoba Youth Counsellor at the Comp, says the school annually applies for funding from MAAW to help put on the annual Addictions Awareness Week, which takes place every year during the third week of November.

“We’ve been putting on Addictions Awareness Week here for at least 10 years, and every year we try and do different things to try and get the message out,” said Harris.

The long list of initiatives the school puts on during the week to try and inform students about the harm of substance abuse and addiction include booking guest speakers, putting on dramatic skits, distributing informational material in classrooms, and setting up display booths during lunch time.

“It was very nice to receive the award, and it gave us the feeling that our effort does get noticed, not only by the public but by the audience here at the school that we’re trying to target,” said Harris. “Sometimes we often wonder how much of our message gets across, but I guess that it is.”

The school was presented with its award at a Nov. 16 ceremony at Oak Park High School, which also doubled as the official kick-off for this years Manitoba Addictions Awareness Week.

It took Marty Wildman a near-death car crash to beat his addiction to alcohol.

As part of National Aboriginal Addictions Awareness Week (Nov. 16-20) Wildman hoped by speaking out about his personal struggles with addiction he might prevent others from following down a similar path.

“It’s OK to be sober and live a sober life,” said Wildman, a member of the Chiniki First Nation.

He helped organize a 40-minute walk from Chief Chiniki Restaurant off the TransCanada Hwy to the Wesley Elders Lodge in the Morley townsite. It was the first time that all three Nations had banded together to do one unified walk, which ended a week of addiction awareness workshops and activities for the Stoney Nakoda First Nations community.

“This whole walk is just a celebration of people’s sobriety and to bring awareness throughout the community. We might be a small group, but it’s a start,” said Wildman.

As a former television and film actor Wildman (formerly Marty Chiefcalf) is perhaps best known for his role as Terry Whitemud on North of 60. He invited his friend Eric Schweig, known for his role in The Last of the Mohicans, to help him speak about how they both fought back addiction.

“Being in the movies just made me more of a drunk because it gave me more money, more access to this, more access to that,” said Wildman.

He hadn’t intended to stop his alcoholism, but a traumatic car crash had him thinking twice.

Wildman still remembers waking up on the side of the highway near the Nakoda Lodge after the drunk driver he was with crashed the car and left him for dead.

Fortunately, an ambulance on a routine run to Canmore noticed the car tracks going off the road and stopped to investigate. They found Wildman passed out a short distance from the car in a hypothermic state.

He spent one month in a coma, one month in intensive care, one month in the trauma unit and another six months learning how to walk again.

“I just tell everybody that it’s because of the hand of God that I’m standing here. I’ve been given a second chance at life. I want to tell kids what happened to me was not a good thing,” said Wildman.

As of today, Wildman’s been sober for six years. He traces his struggle with addiction back to the pain of his grandmother’s residential school experience, which in turn was passed on to his mother and then him.

“It’s like being a hereditary alcoholic, the abuse was hereditary, the abandonment and then now I’m fortunate to have a great family who supports me,” said Wildman, whose parents divorced when he was seven.

He still has insecurities, but realizes he has to deal with them internally before he can deal with anything else.

As a kid, he was school driven and didn’t start drinking until he was 17 years old.

“Peer pressure eventually got to me. I was one of the kids who was a good kid in school, did my work, went to class and I used to get ostracized for it because everybody else was out skipping school,” said Wildman.

“The people who were cool back in school are now asking me for money. I’m not bragging, but it’s things that go around come around,” he said.

Today, he’s a husband and a father and runs the Chiniki Elders Program. He encourages youth to broaden their horizons and gain perspective while maintaining a sober lifestyle.

“I tell the kids at the school, the best advice I can give you is to leave the reserve, learn something from the outside world and bring it back and teach those that need to be taught.”

Like many other designated awareness weeks throughout the year, this one is very important. It addresses issues that people don’t often talk about freely, but that are immense problems in many communities.

In Meadow Lake there were several activities planned for Addictions Awareness Week, although they were mainly planned through local schools.

It is very important for young people to get a sense that addictions can change your life and the lives of the people you love. They need to be aware that just because it is not talked about a lot does not mean it does not happen, and that addictions are very serious in any form.

It is great that the schools and school groups like Students Against Drunk Driving are working hard, especially during this week, to bring awareness to addictions. But what about the community? The Government of Saskatchewan says that this week was an opportunity for communities to play a role in addressing addictions, not just schools. If there were any activities, information sessions or events planned within the community, they were not advertised well.

This is the time of year when MADD begins to hold checkstops to give out red ribbons to raise awareness about drinking and driving. It is about the only thing that does draw attention to problems like that in the community. We have to remember that alcohol is not the only addiction out there though. Awareness should be raised about all types of addictions.

Scott Gallagher, a motivational speaker who has gone through pretty much every addiction you can think of, spoke at Jonas Samson Junior High last Monday. He emphasized the fact that addictions come in many forms. Yes, drugs like marijuana and cocaine are terrible addictions to have, but even smaller addictions to sugar or the Internet can wreak havoc on someone’s life.

People need to be aware that there are people with problems in every community, people dealing with addictions to things that are bad for them and that hurt the people around them. And the community has a responsibility to help those people, not just the ones doing drugs and alcohol.

Addictions Awareness Week has come and gone, and while the students of Meadow Lake know a little more about how addictions can negatively impact your life, but unfortunately the rest of the community will have to wait until next year to find out.

In a nutshell: HR thinks shaming and blaming addicts is cruel and unfair. TL thinks shaming and blaming addicts is the only way to open their eyes wide enough to their own selfishness and degradation to push them into recovery. Read the “compassionate” Maté book, then see the “tough” Intervention, and then tell me: Which would you choose for someone you love?

Everybody — informed or otherwise — has an opinion on addiction and how to treat it, so the subject never fails to generate animated public debate.

The literature on addiction is voluminous. Any amateur researcher trying to get a handle on the constant outpouring of medical, governmental and ideologically-tuned advocacy literature (both for and against legalization of drugs) will find it a daunting and confusing business. I have tried, so I know.

In the end it’s pretty simple. Everyone agrees addiction takes a terrible human and societal toll. It’s what to do about it that polarizes us. Opinion invariably drifts toward one of two basic camps, depending on one’s view of human nature.

According to the Tough Love (TL) school, human beings are endowed with moral agency and can control their choices. In this view, however painful the circumstances driving the flight into the oblivion drugs provide, nobody is beyond redemption if he chooses — and even if he doesn’t choose, but is forced into – long-term community-based rehabilitative therapy.

According to the Romantic school, summed up in the philosophy of Harm Reduction (HR), addiction is a chronic disease, like rheumatoid arthritis, that befalls victims. The best we can hope to do, from this perspective, is palliate the misery and mitigate the spread of disease and crime, while enabling the addiction’s perpetuation more hygenically.

For the ultimate Romantic approach, read Gabor Maté’s 2008 book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Dr. Maté, a sainted icon of the drug legalization movement, ministers full time to hard-core substance abusers. An admittedly neurotic personality with multiple manias and a hunger for both celebrity and vicarious suffering, the spiritually restless doctor found his bliss in his identification with the inhabitants of the Portland hotel, home to Vancouver’s most unregenerate human wreckage (“I saw the cockroaches and fell in love”).

Maté sees all of humanity as more or less addicted to something. For himself it is classical CDs; Conrad Black is “addicted to status”; and perhaps you are addicted to chocolate cake. Oh yes, and that emaciated parody of a human being lying spaced out in his own vomit is addicted to a “substance.” It’s all one, you see. And therefore: “Addiction can never be understood if looked at through the lens of moralism and judgment.”

After wading through Maté’s hagiography of junkiedom, you may, as I did, yearn for nothing so much as a heavy dose of moralism and judgment, not to mention assurance you are not an addict, even if, like me, you tend to buy a lot of books you may never read. You will find compelling abundance of both moralism and judgment in the Emmy-award winning TV series about addiction, Intervention. I have no use for reality shows in general, but this one I’m addic — er, I really like.

At the end of every Intervention segment, the addict — of alcohol, cocaine, heroin, gambling, oxycontin, you name it — is surprised with an intervention by his loved ones, facilitated by one of three plain-spoken ex-addicts.

You would not believe the tears that flow on this show, or the outpouring of love — real, passionately felt, unconditional — the parents and siblings and friends feel for the addict, love the addict accepts as an entitlement or shrugs off with indifference.

Unlike the co-suffering, romanticizing Maté, the ex-addict facilitators are pragmatic, cool, been-there-done-that realists. They are unmoved by the addict’s narcissism, self-pity and grievance-collecting.

The format of the intervention capping the addict’s documented downward spiral is invariable: The addict is seated in the midst of those whose lives he or she is ruining. Up to now they have been enabling the addict out of helplessly protective love.

The intervention begins with family members reading their own texts, enumerating the enabling behaviours they will no longer endorse (money, free accommodation, etc.), all ending with, “Will you accept this gift [of 90-day community rehabilitation therapy]?”

Usually the addict breaks down, as each of the addict’s victims makes clear the devastating scope of addiction’s consequences on others, especially children. They accept the rehabilitation, with varying degrees of gratitude or reluctance. Some succeed at it; some don’t.

The dramatic televised difference between the addicts in the grip of their grotesque enslavement and their mature acceptance of responsibility for their lives 60 days later is remarkable and inspiring.

In a nutshell: HR thinks shaming and blaming addicts is cruel and unfair. TL thinks shaming and blaming addicts is the only way to open their eyes wide enough to their own selfishness and degradation to push them into recovery. Read the “compassionate” Maté book, then see the “tough” Intervention, and then tell me: Which would you choose for someone you love?

As some of you may know, last week was Addictions Awareness Week. Addiction is a very serious issue, and so this week, I want to bring awareness to an addiction that has many young students hooked, especially during exam time. I’m not talking about Ritalin or Adderall — those cravings make sense if you want to do well in school. No, I’m talking about Facebook.

I want to start by giving you all a window into my own battle with this fixation: I tried kicking my habit a few weeks ago, cold turkey. I got through the morning alright, but as the afternoon crept around, I began to feel sick. My hands scratching and beginning to sweat, I knew I needed just a quick fix to get me through the day. Head pounding, I walked through the Rutherford atrium, trying not to betray my sense of urgency and bolted up the stairs to the quiet study on the second floor.

I ducked into the computer lab in the back, pleased to find it empty. It’s there that I got my hookup, updating my Facebook status: “Tim Schneider is … happy ” I sighed with relief, euphoric as those beautiful little endorphins flooded through my system. After that moment of weakness, I relapsed and I must confess I haven’t been able to shake it since. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

As the parents of modern students fear all the trouble that we can get into “out there” on the streets, they’re ignorant to the danger that lurks on the quietest nights, the ones where you don’t go out because you tell everyone you’re “studying”— a likely story. There in the solitude of your room, you’ll get that hit and be high for hours at a time.

I know it sounds harmless and feels good, but the side effects of Facebook addiction are varied and dangerous. Perhaps most potent are its hallucinogenic and dissociative properties. You may trip out and believe you’re a successful farmer, a mob boss, or an insanely wealthy sorority girl. Buoyed by a false sense of self-esteem at how many “friends” you have, I realize it can be hard to tear yourself away. When I come down off my high, I usually realize I just spent the last several hours jerking off my ego all alone in my bedroom, and feel somewhat withdrawn.

While Facebook has its dangerous side effects, much like heroin, it has some value when used correctly in moderation. However, instead of being a powerful medical analgesic, it’s a potent social lubricant. I often use it on my phone at parties to find out if the girls I’m talking to are single. It’s a real time saver there and, as a bonus, people often think I’m texting so I’m somehow perceived as popular.

In addition, it allows on-again/off-again couples to carefully articulate on their profiles that their relationship is complicated, just so everyone knows — which is a helpful and necessary social distinction. And nothing lets someone know that they’re out of your good books like defriending them. This novel technique is currently unsurpassed in its ability to handle such intricately delicate social situations.

But what we all need then is to cut back, especially during exams, perhaps by temporarily disabling our profiles or getting a friend (a real-life one) to monitor our use. We need to create a social and political movement to moderate abuse of Facebook, like cigarettes in the ’70s through the ’90s. Let’s band together and start a revolution. You go create rallies as Facebook events that will spread the word, and I’ll be happy to establish a Facebook group for everyone to join. Soon everyone will be invited to what will be the mass breakout from social media that we all so desperately need.

Just don’t be surprised when I don’t make it to your rally. In all likelihood, I’m probably going to hit “maybe attending” and not show. And then spend the whole time un-tagging photos from parties of my exposed genitals. For some reason there are a lot of those out there.

Last week the NAAAW team had the extremely difficult task of reading and rating the 165 applications for community grants. If we could – we would have funded almost everyone one. It was awe-inspiring to witness all of the creativity and enthusiasm that these communities have for NAAAW week. We would like to share with you the criteria that we used to rate the applications:

CRITERIA

• Creativity – of the types of activities and events that were planned.
• Long Term Impact – How might the activities planned for NAAAW week have an impact in the community that will continue after NAAAW is over?
• Awareness – How did the events planned incorporate addictions awareness and the ongoing projects in the communities that address addictions? Did the awareness activities include a variety of types of addictions?
• Partnerships – How did the organization/office planning the event include other offices/organizations in the community to ensure participation in the NAAAW event?

Once the first round of application rating was completed, there were still over 60 applications that received top marks! We then put those applications through a second rating process that considered the following criteria:

• Duration of event – How many days of the NAAAW week did the community have celebrations planned? Did any communities have NAAAW events that would take place outside of the NAAAW week?
• Cost Effectiveness – did the communities stretch the event dollars as far as possible?
• Leadership Support – did the communities have the support of the leaderships and even the participation of leaders planned in the events?
• National Representation – the NAAAW team ensured that grants were distributed across Canada (provincial and tribal representation) and included First Nation and Inuit communities.

Once this long process was completed, we had narrowed it down to 30 grant winners. Congratulations to those communities!

WINNERS

The winners by province (and their highlights will be put up soon).

ONTARIO

• Living the Good Life Partnership, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation
• Beausoleil Family Health Center
• Sagamok Naandwedgije-Gamik
• Health and Social Services, Wasauksing First Nation
• Aundeck Omni Kaning NNADAP Program, Little Current, Ontario

SASKATCHEWAN

• Piapot First Nation Health Services
• Waterhenlake First Nation
• Flying Dust First Nation

BRITISH COLUMBIA

• Kwakiutl Band Council
• Heiltsuk Nation
• United Addictions Program and Service Providers for Sto:Lo
• Nisga’a Valley Health, servicing 4 communities in Nass Valley
• Canim Lake Family Wellness Program

NUNAVUT

• Nunavut Speed Skating Association
• Igloolik Health Centre
• Kugluktuk Community Wellness Planning Committee

ALBERTA

• Young Spirit Winds Treatment Program
• Peigan Prevention Counselling Services

YUKON

• Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation
• Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Health Social

QUEBEC

• Listuguj Community Health Services
• Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg
• Kahnawake Shakotuua’takehnhas Community Services

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

• Inuvik Community Corporation
• Aklavik Crime Prevention Committee

MANITOBA

• Lac Brochet, Northlands Denesuline First Nation
• Sioux Valley FASD

NEW BRUNSWICK

• Indian Island First Nation
• Wolastoqewiyik Healing Lodge

NOVA SCOTIA

• Parents Against Drugs, Eskasoni

Their Drug Strategy is open for all to see and, maybe, emulate!? What if everyone followed an actual strategy outlined like this? click HERE to see it (PDF).

If your community also has a Drug Strategy, let us know!

A new report says people employed in Canada’s oil and natural gas industry are seeking help for alcohol dependency in extremely high numbers and face working conditions that put extraordinary stress on families.

The study by the Shepell.fgi Research Group says in the past three years the number of energy industry employees seeking counselling for drinking problems was up 481 per cent.

“The high rate of addictions is of particular concern to oil and gas employers due to the safety-sensitive nature of the workplace,” the report says.

Part of the problem is the energy industry includes large numbers of transitory workers who live far away from home, says the study.

It also says spouses of energy sector employees who move to another region to find work face isolation and job schedules that can lead to higher levels of substance abuse.
Dry camps help healthy work atmosphere

The research group says to deal with the problem, companies should offer stress management education to workers and establish policies that help prevent alcohol abuse.

Last week, oilsands giant Suncor Energy announced it was banning alcohol at all its worker camps in Alberta.

Suncor spokeswoman Shawn Davis said alcohol has always been banned at its Firebag site. Starting Sept. 1, the same rule will apply to its Borealis and Millennium lodges just north of Fort McMurray.

Davis said the ban will help maintain a healthy atmosphere in the camps and will help avoid security problems. Petro-Canada, which has merged with Suncor, also bans alcohol at its worker camps.

Help for alcohol dependency spikes

Michael Kennedy, a Shepell.fgi spokesman, said the number of people seeking counselling for drug problems in the industry has remained relatively constant over the past few years but the number of people seeking help for alcohol dependency has increased at a much greater rate.

Researchers weren’t sure if the trend is because alcohol is legal and more socially acceptable than illegal drugs or that testing for illegal drugs has become prevalent at many work sites.

He said the industry is getting the message about the need to better deal with alcohol dependency in its workforce, but banning alcohol at work camps is only part of the answer.

“You have to do more than just banning it. If it was as simple as just refusing the access then it would make the problem go away, but I think most firms recognize that it is one part of what needs to be a multi-pronged strategy,” Kennedy said.

Officials with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers were not available for comment.

Shepell.fgi said its study is based on information gleaned from 36 energy industry organizations between January 2006 and December 2008.