HANDBOOK ONE STEP TO GET OFF DRUGS

EDMONTON - Bev Dick has done it all in the name of a fix.

The 46-year-old has sold her body on the streets, danced on tables, hunted
for drugs in hotel rooms and on the streets.

She spent 16 years shooting a mix of Ritalin and Talwin - commonly referred
to a poor man's heroin - and crack.

"I was lucky I never lost my life," Dick said Tuesday, at Streetworks'
launch of a new handbook on safe drug use.

"I guess there was a purpose for me to hang on."

Now HIV positive, Dick has watched more than 30 friends and relatives die
of their addictions, including her parents, her brother, and her son.

Streetworks, a non-profit organization that works with drugs addicts and
sex-trade workers in the downtown area, worked with 10 clients over six
months to create Uptown, Downtown: the drug handbook.

It is the third book in a series published by Streetworks staff, and the
only one paid for by Health Canada's Drug Strategy Community Initiatives
Fund, launched in April 2004.

No topic in the handbook is taboo; from safe drug use in pregnancy, to
scabies, to hepatitis C.

Health Canada's $245 million fund pays non-profit health organizations,
among others, to plan public information campaigns, provide life skills
training and promote healthy lifestyles and behaviours.

The fund will also help pay for Streetworks' harm reduction program, which
will train 50 people to recognize and treat the symptoms of drug overdoses
in themselves and others. Addicts will be equipped with a small kit
containing latex gloves, a face mask, 10 needles, a reminder of the steps
for artificial respiration and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, and a small
vial containing 10 doses of naxolone hydrochloride, a generic name for what
is commonly referred to as Narcan.

Naloxone quickly reverses the symptoms of an opiate overdose and lasts for
a period of about an hour, enough time to get someone to a hospital.

A registered nurse who works for Streetworks likened it to people with bee
sting allergies carrying an EpiPen.

Gordon Currie, 48, said creating the handbook was an eye-opener for him.

"By looking at the book and taking part in helping to write it, I realized
the end of the story is always a disaster," said Currie, who has been
taking drugs since he was 11 years old.

"I'm no longer a garbage can anymore. I'm more selective. I think people
who read the book will see that it's not necessary that it goes that far."

A 2003 University of Alberta study pegged the population of intravenous
drug users in the city at 4,000 people.

About 60 to 70 per cent of new HIV/AIDS cases are injection drug users and
their sexual partners.

Edmonton has about seven new cases a month.

Outreach worker Sandy Johnson said its important for addicts to know how to
be safe and how to save others.

"Someone who has a child out there doing drugs will want them to take steps
to prevent them from getting hepatitis or HIV.

"One day, all the things we have said will click together and they will
quit. We want them to be alive and healthy."