IN A COURSE FOR DRUG USERS, EMPHASIS IS ON SAVING LIVES

Andrew Parker is primed to act if he encounters a drug addict
overdosing on heroin or cocaine.

Parker, 31, is not a paramedic. He's not a social worker. He is an
addict.

The tall, friendly man with a gap-toothed grin is also a graduate of a
course teaching addicts how to survive their addictions and what to do
to revive an overdosed friend.

The former fisherman has a taste for cocaine and marijuana that's
sharpened over the 10 years he has been living in Vancouver's downtown
east side.

Parker is part of the Peer Support Training offered by the
Vancouver-Richmond health board, a program that isn't trying to talk
users out of their drugs. Instead, it offers blunt sessions on such
procedures as cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Within weeks, more than a dozen drug users will be in classes at a
drop-in centre in the east side.

Parker is one of 19 graduates of the first session, held late last
year at a cost of $17,000 to the board.

He talks easily about clearing airways, checking pulses and the proper
number of thrusts to the chest in CPR.

Last year, more than 370 people died in Vancouver after overdosing,
continuing an upward trend blamed on a glut of street drugs,
especially cocaine.

Parker's PST classes began in November. Twenty people went through the
14-day course, which cost the health board about $17,000. Participants
paid nothing.

"If it saves one person . . . I will think it was worthwhile," says
Sharon Ritmiller, an emergency-room nurse now employed with the board.

Students are told they should buy from trustworthy dealers so they
know what they're using. They're also taught about the signs of
overdose, and warned not to shoot up alone so a friend can be around
to help if they overdose.