MLA SEEKS FUNDS FOR ITALIAN-STYLE DRUG-TREATMENT PROGRAM

Walled-in Community: Treatment Program Has 70 Per Cent Success Rate

Wanted: Wealthy benefactor(s) interested in backing an Italian-style
drug treatment community for B.C.

Vancouver MLA Lorne Mayencourt, who last winter visited the
successful and much-copied San Patrignano community for addiction
treatment near the Adriatic Sea, is convinced a similar centre would work here.

"It's a treatment and recovery program where 70 per cent of drug
addicts recover and stay recovered and we need to establish a program
here in B.C.," Mayencourt told a Downtown Vancouver Business
Improvement Association luncheon meeting.

He said research results are from a university study that followed
the participants for three years after they left.

The addicts, who cannot be suffering from major mental illness,
volunteer to enter the walled-in community, agreeing to stay for
three to five years.

There are no fees but the residents are expected to work in the
dozens of workshops to create furniture, cheeses, wines, vegetables
and handmade crafts, such as tapestries and wallpaper. They create 80
per cent of the products they use and make extra money by selling the
high quality goods they produce in a gift shop and over the Internet.

The program, started 28 years ago by a philanthropist who donated his
estate to the non-profit society, is designed to help addicts recover
and is operated on a strict abstinence program. It's spiritual-based
but non-denominational and open to everyone no matter their social,
political or religious beliefs.

Sixty per cent of funds come from revenues generated by the
community, 35 per cent from foundations and corporate donations and
five per cent from government.

Mayencourt said the first step to launching a similar program here is
finding a rural community for the centre and raising the millions it
will require to launch it.

Simon Fraser University psychology professor Barry Beyerstein, who
wasn't familiar with the model, told The Province that "if this
teaches people social skills, vocational skills, gives them recent
job experience so they can get a stake in society, that's the way to
get people off drugs."

He said he was skeptical about isolating addicts in a remote
community because addicts tend to rebel against "prison-like" facilities.