DEATH SYMBOLIZES LOSS OF YOUTH TO DRUGS

APRIL REOCH had the looks and personality that luckier women turn into
a career in the movies. Instead, the 25-year-old was found dead at a
Downtown Eastside social-housing complex Christmas morning. And the
only films she appeared in were two anti-drug documentaries, Through A
Blue Lens and Flipping The World, made by the National Film Board and
the city police force's camera-toting Odd Squad.

At a memorial service for Reoch, which was held at First United Church
Monday, Constable Al Arsenault called her "the seed for the formation
of the Odd Squad," which has weaned some addicts away from drugs and
their associated lifestyle.

Arsenault, Constables Toby Hinton and Carla Webb (who with 40 other
officers is learning Spanish to help address native Hondurans
suspected of dealing drugs) and civilian movie-editor Jessica McKee
hurriedly assembled the video Happy Tears to commemorate Reoch, whose
death, Arsenault said, "symbolizes the loss of our youth to drugs and
the loss of human potential."

Many present reflected on a shot from photographer Lincoln Clarkes'
Heroines series that showed Reoch's innate charm still showing through
disfiguring scars.

Arsenault recalled meeting Reoch in 1994 outside an area hotel and
asking what she was doing. Laughter rippled through the
Hastings-at-Gore church when he added: "Looking for her cousin --
that's what she told me."

But aboriginal women arriving alone in Vancouver do look for
relatives, said Women's Information and Safe House (WISH) coordinator
Elaine Allan, whose organization helped stage the event. As for what
happens when newcomers don't meet family members, Allan said WISH
serves nutritious dinners nightly to up to 100 drug-addicted sex-trade
workers, of whom Reoch was one.

WISH will participate in a public information meeting at Christ Church
Cathedral on the evening of Jan. 30, Allan said. The former
corporate-communications professional said the area needs a 30-day
detox centre to supplant a three-day facility that has seven beds for
women.

"When women go off the streets, they're sick, exhausted, malnourished
and confused," Allan said. "Their brains aren't working properly. But
if you go in [to the existing detox facility] and can't cut it, you're
punished. You can't go back for 30 days."

Allan, who also works in prisons, said the $9,200 it reportedly costs
to jail petty criminals for 45 days, would return a $65,000 benefit to
society if spent on addiction treatment.

Jim McFadden, a legal assistant who says his grandfather was Bella
Bella head chief Hunichitt, doesn't agree with the way the Odd Squad
responds to Downtown Eastside drug-abuse cases. "Why do they film
events rather than enforce the laws on the books?" McFadden asked. "If
these drug dealers hung around schools in Shaughnessy, they'd be
hustled off at once."