DRUG CENTRE GETS $2M FROM B.C.

Keremeos: First Long-Term Treatment Facility For Youth In Province

B.C.'s first long-term residential addiction-treatment centre for
youth will be open later this year, after the provincial government
kicked in $2 million this week.

The Crossing at Keremeos, a 42-bed facility in a mountain setting
outside the Okanagan community, will take in 20 addicted B.C. youths,
aged 14 to 24, by the end of the year.

"It is an incredible affliction for people, and we are not willing, I
think, as a society or as citizens, to allow that to continue," said
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.

"The Crossing at Keremeos is going to become a place of hope, hope
for families, hope for their young people, afflicted with an addiction."

The centre, based on the successful Portage program, will have its
own school, a staff nurse and psychiatrist on hand, and allow
recovering addicts to get an education, do therapy and reunite with family.

"These funds will go toward renovating and retrofitting the buildings
on the future site," said Jennifer Johnstone, CEO of the Central City
Foundation, which bought the

former 58-acre Outward Bound camp years ago. "It's tranquil,
therapeutic, and ideally suited for this home."

The $6-million project still has to raise another $1.7 million.

"Young people across B.C. are waiting for the day when they can pack
a bag, and start on one of the most important journeys of their life,
the journey of recovery," said Johnstone.

Parents Susie and Rob Ruttan, who founded the parents group From
Grief to Action a decade ago, sent their 15-year-old son to a Portage
treatment centre in Eastern Canada to cure his heroin addiction.

He's now 26, and plans to return to Portage -- to be a worker there.

It was the Ruttans' story that inspired the fundraising campaign to
set up a Portage facility in B.C.

"Kids really learn from other kids," said Susie. "It's all
peer-based. They move through different levels, and you are shadowed
by another new member, as you go up.

"The kids are basically running all the meals, all the mechanics of
the place, which is so empowering."

B.C. and Newfoundland are the only provinces without long-term
residential treatment for youth.

"The longer you delay, more families are suffering," said Rob. "We
know personally 13 young people who have died since we started
lobbying for this."

About 15 young B.C.ers have been sent to Portage centres in Eastern
Canada through Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health authori-ties.

There will be a public picnic today at Victory Square in Vancouver,
starting at 11 a.m., to officially launch The Crossing project.