'WILD WEST FRONTIER' A BREEDING GROUND FOR EMPLOYEE ADDICTION

Cocaine Easier to Get Than Pizza in Booming Northern Alberta

EDMONTON - Even when living in the remote work camps of Alberta, Ken
was never far from his next fix.

If cocaine wasn't being used inside his camp of 3,000 oil workers in
the outskirts of Fort McMurray, it lingered just outside in the
pockets of the drug dealers who prowled outside the gates like predators.

"I could get it quicker than I could get pizza," says Ken, not his
real name.

What began as a flirtation with alcohol and cocaine when he first
moved out to the Fort McMurray area at age 17 slowly grew into a
full-blown addiction. By his late 20s, the young welder was engaging
in whirlwind cocaine binges that lasted days.

As with many of his fellow workers, the mix of isolation, boredom and
high wages created the right conditions for the perfect storm of
substance abuse.

"You're away from your kids, you're away from everything. It's just 10
times harder to cope," he says.

"It wasn't the camps that were the problem, it's the accessibility.
You made your choice of what you do with it."

As Alberta's petroleum industry moves through a period of
unprecedented growth, northern communities are finding themselves
increasingly swamped by alcoholism and drug abuse.

Some experts suggest the problem has reached epidemic proportions,
forcing police detachments, social services and oil companies to come
up with new approaches.

"It is happening so rapidly that for municipalities and for the
provincial government, the challenge has been keeping up with it,"
says Dan Dibbelt of the Northern Alberta Development Council.

Alberta's per capita average consumption of alcohol is nine litres a
year. The national average is 7.9 litres, according to a Canadian
addiction survey from 2004.

Commissioned in part by Health Canada, the survey, which questioned
more than 2,400 Albertans, was the third national survey in less than
five years to examine drug and alcohol use across Canada.

The survey found that, from 1994 to 2004, the province's consumption
average increased by 1.5 litres.

Drug use isn't far behind, with marijuana, crack cocaine and crystal
meth problems being reported in many oil communities.

And wherever substance abuse has soared, crime has inevitably
followed.

An unreleased development council study found that crime levels in
communities such as Grande Prairie, Slave Lake, Cold Lake and Fort
McMurray are now much higher than the provincial norm. Fort McMurray,
for example, has an overall crime rate five times the provincial average.

Some experts, such as the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission's
Barry Andres, chalk up the problem to a "wild west frontier mentality"
that sees people embrace a work hard, play harder outlook.

But other insiders say Alberta's skyrocketing substance abuse points
to a growing disconnect between a city's transient workers and the
local community.

In some oil patch towns, transients workers more than double the
permanent population.

"These people are not committed to their community," says Dibbelt.
"You don't see these people involved in things like soccer, you don't
see those people sitting on committees or councils, or things like
that."

John Parkins, co-author of Beyond Boredom: Contributing Factors to Substance
Abuse in Hinton, says the increasing prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse is
connected to an increasing sense of isolation coming from the community's
oil workers.

Hinton has a mobile population ranging between 5,000 and 9,000 people,
almost double the size of its permanent residents.

"The people we talked to were definitely aware that this has been part
of their community for a long time," he said.

"For many communities like Hinton, the boom has simply exacerbated the
conditions that are already prevalent within these
communities."

On the front lines of this ongoing battle are substance abuse
treatment centres.

Andres says AADAC is treating twice as many patients as it did 10
years earlier. The Fort McMurray office has seen a 25 per cent
increase in the number of clients since January 2006.

With social services increasingly swamped, the Alberta government,
police and oil companies have had to take a bigger role in the fight
against addiction.

This June, AADAC teamed with the RCMP and several petroleum companies
to create the Drug and Alcohol Council for Safe Workplaces. The
council monitors the safety hazards of having intoxicated employees in
the workplace with a focus on finding help for those with addictions.

"The companies are being very proactive," says Barb Robbins, manager
of AADAC's Grande Prairie office. "We've been consulted by a number of
them asking to review their alcohol and drug policy, or they will
consult with us with the other things they should be putting in place."

Most of the biggest companies now conduct drug tests before hiring, as
well as after any workplace accident. If they fear an employee has an
addiction, many require the worker to go a treatment facility for assessment.

But some experts say the problems are now evolving past the current
solutions.

"We're now seeing less assessments being requested by employers
because given the job opportunities that people have, they can quit
one job and not necessarily have to follow through on those employer
recommendations," Robbins said.

For Edmonton resident Dianne Vawter, who saw two of her own family
members go through drug addictions, the feelings of isolation can
spread far beyond the camps of Fort McMurray.

"When they were going through it, for me, it was confusion,
depression, fear," Vawter says. "I didn't know what was going on ...
it was every family's worst nightmare."

Vawter convinced her family members to get help after months of
research and grappling with her own depression.

As a result of her own experience, Vawter created Crave Life-Drug
Free, a drug rehab placement and intervention agency for families
desperate to find help for loved ones.

"I am just a mother trying to help other families who are trying to
paddle their way through this maze and get help for their kids," she
says.

"A lot of people don't realize that there is hope and there is help
out there."

Her program is now spreading into places like Fort McMurray, where
Vawter believes help is needed most.

For Ken, the camps are now a distant memory.

Drug-free for more than two years, he is back on the job working as a
contractor in Fort Saskatchewan.

He says he got clean after going through an innovative treatment
program that addresses the biophysical and biochemical imbalances from
addiction through a unique sauna program.

"I didn't quite lose everything, but I almost did."