FORGET THE SHOOT-UP GALLERY: ADDICTED TEENS NEED A RECOVERY HOUSE

In their haste to appear cool to local voters, Vancouver politicians
have become addicted to so-called safe-injection sites as a quick fix
to the ginormous West Coast drug problem.

But they've virtually ignored what I view as a much more important
part of the solution -- namely treatment programs that actually try to
get people off drugs, especially young people.

So, I wasn't as shocked as I might have been when told yesterday by
Rob and Susan Ruttan, Vancouver parents of a recovering teen heroin
addict, that B.C. still has no publicly funded, long-term treatment
centre for young drug users.

"It's absolutely shocking and disgraceful, and we've been saying this
for five years," said Rob Ruttan, a Crown prosecutor.

As things stand, B.C. teens addicted to heroin, coke or crystal meth
often have to be sent out of the province or country for treatment, at
great expense. And the Ruttans have been through the wringer trying to
secure proper treatment for their son (they sent him to Ontario) and
to help other parents of drug-addicted teens.

Now, it seems, their efforts are finally paying off. Their son Gavin,
21, is happily employed as a staff assistant at a recovery centre in
New Brunswick. And they're eagerly awaiting a response from Premier
Gordon Campbell to a request they've made to discuss funding for a
planned, long-term (more than two months) youth treatment centre in
south Langley.

The Ruttans are part of a coalition of non-profit groups (including
the Pacific Community Resources Society and the Central City Mission
Foundation) proposing to use a vacant 56-acre site beside picturesque
Campbell Valley Park.

Pacific Community Resources spokesman Tom Hetherington said the
government-owned site could be set up to treat some 100 addicts a
year. Each would stay for six to eight months. "We've looked at a
number of locations and Campbell Valley has the best potential," he
said.

By all accounts, it's an ideal location -- close enough to Vancouver
so parents can visit, but far enough away so the teens/young adults
can have a complete break from the big city. As well as learning to
kick their habit, they'd do everything from catching up on their
schooling to working with local horses.

"Even my son, himself, he realizes that being in a city is just not
healthy for him right now," said Susan Ruttan, a former school
teacher. "He needs to be geographically removed from the culture of
the city, the drug culture."

Yearly operational costs of the treatment centre would be $2.5 million
to $3.2 million -- about the same as for a downtown safe-injection
site. But at least there'd be a chance of getting the teens on track
to a drug-free life.

All safe-injection sites do is keep them addicted.