TEEN TALKS ABOUT HER DESPERATE STRUGGLE WITH DRUGS

Mandatory Drug Treatment Could Help Those Who Don't Realize They Need It

EDMONTON - The 16-year-old girl sprawled on the steps outside the house
where she had partied and taken drugs for three days, and made the phone
call that saved her life.

Inside, a friend was overdosing. Outside, the youth shivered in the biting
April breeze with no jacket, no shoes and no clue except that this must be
the bottom she was hitting.

"I realized I was ruining my life, I was killing my body and I was losing
my family," says the girl, who asked that her name not be used.

On the other end of the line her father told her he was on the way, except
she didn't even know what Edmonton neighbourhood the house was in.

She passed the phone to another girl but that person had no idea what the
address was either.

"Finally she went next door and handed the phone to someone there and they
gave me directions to the house," says her dad.

He arrived, brought her home and he and his wife were finally able to
convince her to get the treatment she needed to turn her life around,
although it was still a fight for months and may never be over.

Father, mother and child all passionately support Red Deer Tory MLA Mary
Anne Jablonski's private member's bill, which would let parents and
guardians seek mandatory drug-treatment orders for addicted children.

"Some people hit bottom and finally reach out for help," says her dad, who
had a hellish time fighting to save his daughter from ecstasy and other
rave drugs. "For some of them the bottom is death or permanent damage,
however. Some never reach out."

His daughter, who is now 17, says the government would do drug-addicted
teens a huge favour by passing Jablonski's bill.

"People do need it," she says. "A kid is not going to realize help is
needed until it's too late.

"When they're using drugs they only see what they want to see, which is
that they want the drugs. They have to get clean to see the whole picture."

During the months she was on the street doing drugs, her mother and father
relentlessly went from agency to agency searching for a solution and
finding nothing but other desperate and frustrated parents.

"There's nothing you can do to help her and she wasn't in a position to
help herself," her father says. "I couldn't get her to go into treatment
voluntarily.

"I went to Children's Services and begged and pleaded with them for three
weeks, but they couldn't help."

Marilyn Benay, a family support worker with McMan Youth Family and
Community Services Centre says there must be major changes.

"I was so excited to see this bill come forward," Benay says. "It is really
needed."

There are many young kids out on the street, strung out on drugs and at the
mercy of older people who prey on them, she says.

A long-term program that will move those vulnerable children to a safe
place where they get the expert treatment should be a huge priority.

Things are so bad that some parents celebrate when their drug-addicted
children are charged with a crime. So far that's the only way the kids can
be forced into treatment.

There are some programs at the Edmonton Young Offenders Centre and a pilot
project called Bridges, run at Howard House for eight to 10 convicted boys
only.

A few children can occasionally be placed at Alberta Hospital.

Everything else is voluntary.

The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, or AADAC, has 18 spots in
Edmonton for northern Alberta and another 18 in Calgary for southern
Alberta in their day drug treatment programs. There are beds at a separate
location for eight in each city, with the rest living at home.

Critics say those numbers are grossly inadequate, given the rise in youth
drug abuse. It's not just that some mechanism is needed to force addicted
youth into treatment, says a mother whose daughter is fighting a
devastating addiction to crystal methedrine.

The province doesn't have the kind of teen residential rehabilitation
treatment centre for kids who need extensive help and to be totally
isolated from troubled peers for up to a year, the mother adds.

The trick is getting the Alberta government to come with the money.

"It doesn't matter whether the bill or the residential centre comes first,"
she says. "If we get the bill that would force the government to come up
with the centre."

AADAC officials know they can't meet all the needs of addicted teens.

"AADAC has identified the lack of a youth detox and residence as gaps in
our service delivery, recognizing that youth need more," says Marilyn
Mitchell, manager of Youth Services in Edmonton.