ADDICT FEARS METHADONE CLINIC CLOSURE

A recovering drug addict says she is terrified that Saskatoon's only
methadone treatment centre may close because its landlord, the Saskatoon
Co-operative Association, has refused to renew its lease.

"It's kept me off the street," says Nancy Luft of the centre. "Without it I
wouldn't have a life."

Dr. Brian Fern said Friday the property manager for the Saskatoon Co-op
informed him in January that his clinic's lease would expire at the end of
the month and the co-op is electing not to renew it.

David Marchant, property manager for the Saskatoon Co-op, refused to
comment Friday.

The only explanation he gave in his Jan. 13 letter to Fern, was that the
centre had missed the deadline to renew its lease.

The co-op did accept rent for February, but Fern said the future of the
clinic at the Eighth Street Co-op is uncertain.

He and two other physicians, Dr. Peter Butt and Dr. R. McAllister, are the
only doctors in the city who hold a special licence that allows them to
prescribe methadone, a drug that helps reduce the undeniable craving
experienced by addicts.

Luft, 35, said Friday that after five years of prostituting to pay for a
$150 per day habit, methadone finally helped her control the sickness and
craving.

Luft has been clean since 1998, Social Services has returned her children
to her and she is working hard to lead a normal life.

Luft thinks she was hooked after her first heroin fix, which she took at
the urging of her ex-husband. Within days of starting to use the drug once
a day, she realized she felt sick if she didn't have it. Eventually the
need became so great, she "almost had seizures without it," she said.

"It's not like you want to be a junkie. It's so hard to quit. I tried so
many times," she said.

After selling all her belongings, she began selling her body for the money
to pay for her and her husband's drugs.

Within the first year, after selling morphine to an undercover police
officer, Social Services apprehended her children and she spent time in
jail. When she got out, the habit was still there along with the need for
cash every day.

When she first heard about methadone, Luft was skeptical, thinking that one
drug was the same as the next.

But the methadone program includes strict monitoring and a counselling
component that has provided emotional support to help her stay clean and be
a better mother.

"I'm not standing on a corner anymore. I'm not stealing," she said.

When Luft learned Fern had lost his lease at the Eighth Street co-op
location, she decided to go public with her story in the hope it would
allow the clinic to remain in its current location.

"The thought of a dead cutoff is so scary. People are going to be so sick.
There's going to be so much crime. Its going to be just horrible," Luft said.

Fern said a person would have to steal $1,000 worth of merchandise per day
to support a $300 per day drug habit.

Multiply that by even half of his 250 patients and the annual cost to city
merchants and homeowners is enormous, he said.

Sgt. Jerome Engele of the Saskatoon Police Service's integrated crime unit
agrees the program benefits the entire community by curbing drug-related crime.

"Since the methadone program has come along, our drug store armed robberies
have fallen right off. We still have drug store robberies, but they're not
doing it for drugs. They're stealing money and cigarettes."

The drug unit has surveyed the methadone patients and monitored their
run-ins with the law. They have found that many methadone users who were
"regular customers of the police," when they were using drugs, disappear
from the criminal scene.

"(They committed) thefts, break and enter, trafficking drugs, diverting
drugs, stuff like that. Now we don't have any interaction with them. That's
pretty good.

"The minority are the ones we still deal with. The majority of them seem to
do well and fade away into living an ordinary life, which is what we want,"
Engele said.

He estimates that 50 or 60 of the 250 or so methadone users have been in
contact with the police in the past year.

"The success rate is very good," he said.

Engele said he hopes Fern can keep his location or find another.

"There's a lot of people dependent on that program," he said.