NEW DRUG ABUSE TEAM WILL TACKLE GROWING PROBLEM 'TOP TO BOTTOM'

Broader Community Approach Needed, Mayor Says

Ottawa's injection drug users have the highest hepatitis C infection
rates in Canada, nine times higher than those in Toronto and the same
as Vancouver's drug users, says a University of Ottawa study.

The city's numbers beat Toronto and Montreal rates of HIV infection, too.

Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli and many others, including public health
officials, police, and addiction specialists, hope to address these
and other problems caused by drug abuse by creating an integrated
drug strategy.

The group had its initial meeting yesterday in Ottawa's city council
chambers, and the goal is to have a report and concrete
recommendations on what to do about drug abuse and related problems
in the city before elected officials by June.

Deputy city manager Steve Kanellakos said the group will make an
inventory of all organizations and programs that deal with drugs and
substance abuse -- from schools to Ottawa's new criminal drug court
officials to methadone clinics -- to find better ways of working
together and closing gaps in the system.

He said the group will also review how private and public agencies
that deal with the issue of drugs are funded.

"This is the first time in Ottawa where we are bringing together all
the stakeholders to see how things can be done better," he said.
"From top to bottom, we're going to look at the problem and find solutions."

In the past, he said, the problem was being dealt with, but the idea
now is to develop a plan to get rid of the problem.

Mr. Chiarelli said after looking at how services are now provided,
"we concluded there was a need for a broader community approach to
dealing with the issue of drugs and addiction."

Among other things, he said the lack of a residential youth drug
treatment facility is a gap in the system that needs to be filled.

Under the plan, officials from roughly 100 organizations and programs
will be surveyed to determine the issues and possible solutions, a
priority list will be developed and a draft strategy will be ready by
the spring when public consultations will take place. After this, the
final plan and recommendations will go to city council for approval.

The plan will focus on immediate, short-term and long-term fixes with
the goals of reducing the use of drugs and the harm associated with abuse.

This is good news to Ottawa's chief medical officer of health, Dr.
David Salisbury, who has been fighting what an Ottawa university
researcher has called "an epidemic" of HIV and hepatitis infection
amongst Ottawa intravenous drug users.

Dr. Lynne Leonard, professor and research scientist at the University
of Ottawa's epidemiology and community medicine department, has been
studying Ottawa's drug users for years.

She estimates there are between 3,300 and 5,300 injection drug users
in Ottawa. In the early 1990s, the rate of HIV infection among users
was 10 per cent. Today, it's 21 per cent, while 76 per cent of drug
users are infected with hepatitis C.

"We truly have a major problem with hep-C rates," Dr. Salisbury said.
"They are truly quite alarming."

Health officials believe the spread of diseases may have been caused
by a too-cautious start to a needle-exchange program in the 1990s,
when public health officials handed out small numbers of clean
needles to addicts.

Dr. Salisbury said he hopes the new strategy will shift the focus
from addiction fighting to preventing people from becoming addicted
in the first place.

"Too much focus has been on people at the end of the process (once
they are addicted)," he said.

"We need to shift the focus to prevention, and hopefully we'll all be
working on similar strategies."