ADDICTED OFFENDERS NEED SUSTAINED TREATMENT

I agree with Peter McKnight's June 28 column, Prison won't treat these
offenders, either. I can attest to his statement that "chronic
offenders who are drug-addicted and mentally ill have little chance of
getting help -- anywhere."

My 28-year-old son became addicted as a preteen. As a latchkey kid
abandoned by his father and raised by an exhausted single mother who
was at work all day, he depended on his peers for a feeling of
belonging. Drugs were easily available in his elementary schoolyard in
Port Moody. My son was one of more than 20 kids who found them the
answer to what was missing in their lives.

Now these kids are adults. Many are drug addicts, criminals, chronic
offenders. My son, whose mental health status has never been properly
assessed, has been in and out of jail and drug treatment for years.
Recently, over a three-month period, he was before a judge more than
six times. He rarely ends up spending more than a month or two in
jail. He has never been incarcerated for long enough to qualify for
drug treatment while in jail.

He can't seem to be drug-free for even one day on his own. He uses
heroin and crack cocaine all day long and steals to support his habit.

Over the years, I have written many letters to politicians begging for
changes to addiction treatment systems, which aren't working. Catch
addicts and get them off the street, put them in secure facilities,
treat them as addicts and criminals and don't let them out until they
have proven they can live in society without damaging it. Make this
secure facility the permanent home of those who refuse, or are unable,
to do so. No government in B.C. has taken the addiction and mental
health problems seriously. It's only now, with the Olympics coming,
that the current government appears interested.

Let's see some gutsy results.

Denyse Zenner

Coquitlam