YOKELS BREEDING INTOLERANCE

There's a fine line between grassroots protest and a lynch mob.

Two cases in point: the methadone clinic that was literally run out of
Calgary this month (lynch mob) and the outrage over a group home in
Strathcona County last month (grassroots protest).

After being forced to move three times in six years, the operators of
the Second Chance Recovery clinic in Calgary announced they're
throwing in the towel, citing threats against its staff by its new
neighbours.

The clinic had just moved into the Braeside area in the city's
southwest, to the horror of some residents, who were convinced the 500
recovering addicts who used the clinic would bring with them crime,
moral decay, disease, decreased property values and general mayhem.

At a packed town hall meeting last week, neighbours threatened to
vandalize the clinic and staff vehicles.

Lawyers for the clinic claim its received a similar reception
everywhere it's moved, so they're throwing in the towel. The truth is,
the narrow-minded yokels who drove the clinic out of business are the
ones contributing to crime, not the addicts.

Addicts go into a methadone program because they're trying to
straighten out their lives. They're certainly not all homeless
junkies. Many of them are prescription drug abusers who got hooked on
painkillers like codeine and oxycodone.

They take daily doses of methadone, which at certain dosage levels
dulls the craving for other drugs while not giving the high. Users can
start putting the pieces of their lives back together while tapering
off drugs altogether.

Now that the Second Chance clinic's being closed, many of its patients
won't have any access to methadone, putting them at risk of becoming
exactly what the good people of Braeside fear most -- homeless,
potentially violent, petty thieves.

Contrast that with the people living around Bosco Homes Uncas Campus
near Ardrossan, who have a legitimate reason to be outraged.

On June 1, the bodies of Barry Boenke, 68, and Susan Trudel, 50, were
found at a rural home not far from the group home for deeply troubled
teens.

Two teens living in the group home were charged in the slaying, one
with murder and another as an accessory after the fact.

It was the final straw for Boenke and Trudel's neighbours, who have
complained for years that kids were constantly running away from the
Bosco home, trespassing, vandalizing and stealing from the surrounding
properties.

But did the residents mount a campaign to shut down the home? No.

Instead, they demanded that the Children's Services ministry, Bosco
and the RCMP work together to eliminate the hundreds of runaway
incidents that happen every year. And when kids went AWOL, they wanted
to be notified.

Despite the tragedy, most of the neighbours understood the necessity
of facilities like this, considered the last stop for kids in the
child welfare system.

"Facilities like this are absolutely needed," one said, just days
after the killing. "But we need to ensure that proper processes and
protocols are in place to keep everyone safe."

Some even insisted that any additional safety and security measures
take into account the teens' dignity.

Two communities, two very different attitudes.

The question is, which would you rather call home?