TWO LOCAL DEATHS LINKED TO HEROIN

Addictions Outreach Workers Needed, Says Community
Services

Two young women are dead, a man was feared dead and at least two more
residents were hospitalized last week in heroin-related incidents.
Twenty-six-year-old Niomi Joanette died Sunday (Feb. 11), and Angie
Brown, also in her twenties, died Wednesday (Feb. 14) after suffering
severe health problems exacerbated by heroin use. A third man was
hospitalized and a fourth man was missing and initially feared dead in
other heroin-related incidents last week. Several days later, on
Monday (Feb. 19), a fifth young man was hospitalized after heroin use.

According to unconfirmed reports, the missing man may in fact have
been scared straight and says he now intends to stay off drugs. The
man hospitalized most recently was given the counteracting drug Narcan
after he was discovered not breathing at a Westway apartment in
Valleycliffe. The 18-year-old had allegedly been taking various drugs,
including heroin, and drinking alcohol since the previous evening,
said RCMP Cpl. Dave Ritchie.

Ritchie said there is a growing trend in town for drug users to turn
away from crack cocaine and crystal meth and toward heroin. Social
service workers were unable to explain the apparent spike in
drug-related incidents because Squamish doesn't have street-level
outreach addictions counsellors.

"We don't have that person who is in with that particular community
and knows what's going on," said Sea to Sky Community Services
Addictions, Drug and Alcohol counsellor Denise Evans. "I've thought
for four years that an outreach person for both adults and youth was a
necessary part of our team. It's significant."

Evans said she's hearing that it's not only heroin use that is sending
people to hospital, but multi-drug use. But counsellors are only in a
position help individuals who have removed themselves from the
community associated with addiction, and the only person with any
sense of increased use of heroin would be Needle Exchange Program
director Richard Trann. But the social service workers' hearts does go
out to the community, said Evans.

"Every single one of us, we're all of us really sad about the deaths
and about the impact on the people that are using," she said. Police
are not treating the deaths of Joanette and Brown as suspicious since
medical reports indicate the problems were health-related. Joanette
had a history of heart problems and died from complications related to
heart failure. Brown died from a staph infection that had reached her
heart, according to RCMP.

Heroin is still believed to have exacerbated the women's health
problems and triggered immune system breakdowns. RCMP has said there
have been no reports of "hot heroin", either contaminated or too
pure, in town.

"It's not hot heroin," said Ritchie. "They [the women] were at a
medical facility so it was considered a natural death. It's not
considered the jurisdiction of a coroner or the RCMP to investigate.
If it was an overdose from hot heroin or something, we would have been
advised."

Trann said he hasn't heard that a pure grade of drugs was going
through Squamish.

There's been no warning issued through the community or at the public
health office, but Trann nonetheless warned heroin users to be careful
when taking their drugs.

"I would suggest all IV drug users to always practice harm reduction
and use a little to start off and to check their drugs that way."