MIDDLE-CLASS KIDS 'SMOKING HEROIN'

Once They're Hooked, the Next Logical Step Is to Inject It, Addictions
Expert Says

Middle-class suburban adolescents in the Vancouver area are
increasingly becoming hooked on heroin, says a leading expert on addictions.

"Adolescents who would never, ever have considered going near heroin
or a needle are having access to smokable heroin," said Dr. Ray Baker,
an addictions medicine doctor who practises in Richmond and teaches at
the University of British Columbia.

Only high-grade heroin can be smoked, because a good part of the drug
is destroyed in low-grade heroin when it is burned.

Because the higher grades are available here now, "we're now seeing
adolescents from middle-class suburban homes who are becoming addicted
to heroin," Baker said in an interview Monday in advance of a congress
in Vancouver this week of the Canadian Criminal Justice
Association.

"They start off by smoking it. When they become concerned because
their tolerance has rapidly escalated and it becomes expensive, they
try to stop.

"Then they realize they have become physically dependent on it. The
next logical step is to use it in a more efficient way because it is
cheaper. It is much more efficient to inject it.

"We're seeing some really scary things with adolescents. We never used
to see heroin addicts as young, otherwise healthy kids."

On the prevention side, the evidence shows that scare tactics don't
work.

The solution, he said, is giving adolescents good refusal skills so
they can say no to drugs and still be cool.

One of the subjects the congress will tackle is whether drugs like
marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.

Baker is in favour of decriminalization but he warned that society
should be aware of the price.

"I am not in favour of creating criminals and criminal records for
people who experiment or who have an addiction disease," he said.

"From that perspective, I would be in favour of it. However, I must
warn society that as they did in Holland, normalizing behaviour or
making it legal will increase that behaviour.

"I am very much against increased use of marijuana by
society."

The 29th biennial congress, which has as its theme Hope beyond the
hurt - drugs, crime and Canadian society, will attract more than 500
people from all components of the criminal justice field.

In welcoming delegates, Mayor Larry Campbell said in a news release
the theme is close to his heart.

"The struggle to confront the problems of poverty and addiction have
preoccupied me and my predecessor, Philip Owen."

Among the speakers will be Dr. Christoph Burki, medical director of
the heroin-assisted treatment centre in Berne, Switzerland, and lawyer
Eugene Oscapella, an advocate for marijuana legalization.