ASIAN DRUG ABUSERS GO UNDER THE RADAR

Official Statistics Don't Capture Asian Addicts

VANCOUVER - In a city with the most visible East Asian population in Canada,
there is
one type of Asian who remains almost invisible in Vancouver: the drug
addict.

Health workers and drug counsellors say there is a hidden group of
mostly Chinese and Vietnamese drug users who receive no treatment
because they are flying under every official radar, and that language
barriers and discrimination hinder the ones who do seek help.

Ann Livingstone, program director of the Vancouver Area Network of
Drug Users, says she only became aware of the problem in 1999 when a
representative of the Asian Society for the Intervention of AIDS
(ASIA) told her that Asian addicts represent a third of the drug-using
population.

"I thought, she's got to be kidding," Livingstone said.

"And then the next time I went to the corner of Main and Hastings, I
just stood still and I counted the number of people, and then I
counted the number of Asians. . . It was 30 per cent, like she said.
For some reason, they seem invisible."

Official studies estimate the number of Asian addicts to be far lower.
The Vancouver Injection Drug User Survey had no available data on the
Asian population, Thomas Kerr, the principal investigator, estimated
that they make up five per cent of the study group.

But he admitted the survey may have overlooked Asians. "The only
sampling bias is that we recruit quite heavily from the Downtown
Eastside," he said.

The vast majority of Asian drug users left the Downtown Eastside over
the last 10 years, says Tuan Luu, an outreach worker with the street
nurse program who has worked in the field since he immigrated from
Vietnam in 1998.

"The number that we see on the street, and can obviously observe, it
could be maximum five to 10 per cent. . . . Another 90 per cent are
still in the community."

Data from Insite and various studies that track clients of health and
addiction centers may be missing Asian drug users as well. Asian
immigrants are one-third as likely as Canadian-born residents to use
mental health services, according to recent Canadian research.

Tomiye Ishida, who started an outreach program for Asian drug users at
ASIA and is herself a recovering addict, said, "They're not visible in
mainstream services, but it's a huge problem. That's even understating
it."

Ishida believes Asian drug users face greater challenges than addicts
of most other ethnicities because of language barriers.

"There were some people [the ASIA drug outreach team] connected with
on the street who hadn't talked to anybody in weeks because they
didn't know anybody who spoke their language. You probably can't even
imagine how limited their knowledge of resources is," she said.

Luu said Asians who enter treatment "have street language, but they
don't really have enough English to listen to hours and hours in the
support group or discussion about drugs, so they get bored."

And then they leave.

Cultural taboos can isolate addicts even further. "Drug abusers . . .
may suffer a double stigma of personal failure and a disgrace to the
ethnic community," said Yuet-wah Cheung, a Chinese-Canadian
sociologist.

Because ancestry is so important in most Asian societies, addicts face
the shame of dishonouring not only their immediate family but their
entire lineage. Asian societies also place a large emphasis on dealing
with personal problems privately, according to Ishida.

"This community or family disgrace perception may discourage the
community to request more treatment facilities and services," Cheung
said.

Ishida said the ones who overcome the language and cultural barriers
to make it to treatment have still more obstacles to face.

"A lot of people who did try to access mainstream alcohol and drug
services felt that [they faced biased attitudes]. People assumed they
were drug dealers because they're Asian."

Even something as simple as food can alienate Asian addicts in
recovery centres. "They don't serve any food that any Asians are going
to eat," says Ishida. "It's hard enough putting yourself into
treatment without suffering from food that you're not familiar with."

One Chinese-Canadian addict who was interviewed by a researcher about
his time in drug treatment said, "[On the first day of admission] I
craved for hot rice. . . . However, when I was in the dining hall, my
heart went down. Anything in my dish is cool. . . . There is a
sandwich but not rice."

Ishida is frustrated by the vicious cycle that Asian drug users face.
When she has applied for funding for Asian drug addiction services,
"They will look at how many Asians will access addiction services like
detox, [and then] they say there's no need."

She would eventually like to see ethnicity-specific drug treatment,
"like a recovery house, for example. That's a good start. Just one
little recovery house."

In the meantime, she has tried to get detoxification centres to change
their menus. She gave them Chinese recipes, and says they were open to
the idea.

But Kerr said there are greater needs to address first.

"The reality is, we don't have enough treatment for anybody, let alone
making ethnicity-specific treatment, which is unfortunate.

There is certainly a need for it, but we don't have it."