PROVINCE TO REVAMP SERVICES TO ADDICTS

Local Communities To Play Bigger Role

British Columbia which spends more per person to deal with addiction than
any other province, is revamping the way it delivers services to addicts.

Local communities will play a bigger role in tackling addiction to
everything from cigarettes to drugs and gambling, the government said
Friday in Vancouver.

The province spends about $100 million a year on addiction prevention and
treatment, about $24 per capita.

"What we need to do is spend those dollars in a way which is much more
effective," said Deputy Premier Joy MacPhail, who headed a year-long review
that produced a half-dozen recommendations aimed at keeping addicts from
getting lost in the bureaucracies of nine B.C. ministries that deal with them.

The government will set up a provincial centre for addiction knowledge and
practice - funded with a $10-million endowment - that will work with all
affected ministries to find ways of delivering their services.

"This is a revolutionary approach to addiction programming, moving the
focus from the ministries that deliver the programs directly to the
communities where the programs are needed," Premier Ujjal Dosanjh said.

The review's recommendations dealt mostly with process, but a general one
that deals with harm reduction could open the door to the controversial
issue of safe drug-injection sights.

The proposal is hotly debated in Vancouver, where alleys and doorways in
the poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside have become open-air shooting galleries.

MacPhail said the task group that conducted the review didn't address the
question of what were appropriate services, leaving specifics up to local
community needs.

That doesn't rule out safe-injection sites, she said.

"If the community determines that, if it's effective in assisting the
community with addictions and the outcomes to deal with addictions, then
yes," she said.

The transition to the new addictions strategy will take about two years,
aided by a new addictions council that will help set the goals, set
research priorities and measure the success fo the programs.

The change means the ministries will work more closely with affected
locales, "and the policies will be rooted in the community," said MacPhail.
"It will also mean that fewer people fall through the cracks."

The new addictions council is crucial to ensuring government-funded
programs meet their goals, MacPhail said. How success will be measured
remains to be seen.

MacPhail said it will be up to individual communities to set their own
standards.

Philanthropist Edgar Kaiser, whose Kaiser Youth Foundation helped prepare
the review, said measuring outcomes is crucial.

"If we're spending dollars in a given field, what are we getting for it,
does it work?" he said. "And if it doesn't work, then what do we do to
improve it?"

Children and Families Minister Ed John supported the local approach, saying
studies elsewhere show that fighting addiction is more successful when
people are treated in their own communities.