FATALITY REPORT URGES PRISON DRUG PROGRAM SAFEGUARDS

A fatality inquiry probing the overdose death of a provincial jail
inmate has recommended more safeguards for programs administering
drugs to recovering addicts.

Dennis Allan Karey, 23, died at the Lethbridge Correctional Centre on
April 30, 2005, after taking methadone that was originally given to
his cellmate.

The cellmate, Jeffrey Allen Arishenkoff, smuggled the drug back to
their cell after receiving a dose at the jail's health centre.

Methadone is a synthetic narcotic commonly administered to heroin
addicts to wean them off a street drug.

Since the death, provincial jails have instituted a policy requiring
correctional officers to watch inmates taking their doses of the drug
and mandating searches before inmates are returned to their cells.

"We've amended our policies and procedures. Whenever we have an
in-custody death, we convene a board of inquiry to look at it,"
Solicitor General Department spokesman Andy Weiler said.

Arishenkoff subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received
a three-year jail sentence.

A report by provincial court Judge Timothy Hiornaka released Thursday
recommended the same policy changes that were instituted after
Karey's death, and also recommended amending the contract signed by
methadone program participants to include an acknowledgment that
sharing methadone is illegal and dangerous.

Meanwhile, officials are continuing to probe the death of a man at
another facility, the Red Deer Remand Centre. The inmate was found
dead in his cell early Wednesday, hours after the RCMP arrested him
in Red Deer.

An autopsy ruled out foul play in the man's death, but investigators
are still waiting for the results of toxicology tests.