LYLE WANTS YOUTH ADDICTIONS FACILITY

SUMMERSIDE - Garth Lyle wants Summerside city council to go to bat for
children enslaved by drugs.

At Monday's year-end council meeting, the veteran Ward 2 councillor
will ask the city to back a local parent lobby group's call to
establish a new long-term in-patient facility in Summerside.

The proposed facility for 14-21 year-olds would be based at the
Summerside Youth Centre.

"I'm going to ask Summerside council to ask our MLAs to work with the
Parent Support Group and (push) the government to work a little faster
to get the facility open."

Lyle said parents of drug-addicted children want the right to commit
their children to the treatment facility without their consent.

"There are two other provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, who have
enacted the legislation and Ontario is looking at it and they (support
group) are saying Alberta is getting close to enacting
legislation.

"Hopefully, Prince Edward Island won't be left behind, waiting for
everyone else (to move ahead)", he said.

"If you have a child in this situation you're at your wit's end all
the time. You just don't know what's going to happen next."

Lyle said he had been to one of the support group's meetings, held
every Thursday at the Prince County Hospital's community mental health
and addictions centre, and he was astonished at the resilience shown
by parents who must struggle with the fallout of their children's drug
addiction every day.

The Parent Support Group says the only option for children descending
into the darkness of drug abuse is Mount Herbert, based in
Charlottetown. But that offers only limited help.

In an earlier submission to the government the group said an effective
treatment facility must offer programs that run for six months to a
year.