HEROIN 'AS EASY AS BEER' HEALTH OFFICIAL TELLS RALLY

Heroin is about as cheap and easy to buy as a case of beer for today's
high-school students, a group of protesters was told Tuesday at the
legislature.

"The big problem with teenagers is heroin. They begin smoking, then
they begin injecting," said Bud Osborn of the Vancouver-Richmond
health board, one of several Vancouver and Victoria groups who
gathered on the steps of the legislature to voice their concerns about
drugs.

Some of the protesters were fighting for the legalization of drugs.
Others, like Victoria's Eleanor Randell who lost her son to heroin six
years ago, were there to fight the prohibition of drugs.

"My 19-year-old son tried heroin for the first time in February,
1993. He laid down, went to sleep, and never woke up," said Randell with
tears in her eyes, as she blamed prohibition as the reason her
"bright" son ended up with an unregulated, lethal dose of powder.

Osborn was there to stop the average 350 yearly deaths in B.C. due to
injection drug overdoses, and to beg the government to treat drugs and
addiction in a more holistic and immediate way. He met later with
Health Minister Penny Priddy to talk. In an interview, Priddy said
each year about eight per cent of drug users die. She agreed the
number of deaths is serious but added the government's methadone
program is being expanded this year.

Priddy said just one per cent of those on the methadone program end up
dying.

Priddy said there are now 4,500 on the program in B.C. and about 500
doctors administering it compared with 1,200 clients and 120
physicians involved with the program when it started in 1993.