EX-ADDICT HELPED STREET PEOPLE

Randy Beddow Remembered As Being Committed To His Peers

Victoria's injection-drug community has lost one its most outspoken
voices.

Randy Beddow died last weekend at home, but his body was not
discovered until Monday morning when a concerned friend went looking
for him. The B.C. Coroners Service says the cause of death will not be
known for a few weeks.

Beddow, 50, was a longtime volunteer at AIDS Vancouver Island and a
board member of SOLID, the Society of Living Intravenous Drug Users.

He collected discarded needles five days a week and used his time on
the street to help drug users find social and health-care services,
provide them with advice and support and hand out clean needles and
other harm-reduction supplies.

Friends remember him as a committed volunteer who used his personal
knowledge of the city's intravenous drug culture to show new
volunteers where to find discarded needles and how to see past stigma
when interacting with drug users.

"He took us all to school on different things on the street," said
Erin Gibson, manager of AIDS Vancouver Island's street outreach services.

Jill, a SOLID board member who did not want her last name printed,
said Beddow was a former heroin addict who never stopped caring about
his peers, even the hard-to-reach ones.

"Randy could get through to people others had given up on," Jill said.

He spoke frankly, treated people with respect and always advocated for
the underdog, she added.

"There's a hole in my life now," she said.

Beddow regularly spoke to medical, nursing and social-work students
about the challenges of accessing health-care services as an
injection-drug user. He was also scheduled to speak tonight at a
community forum on building safer neighbourhoods by providing
comprehensive health-care services, including needle exchanges, to
people who use drugs.

"He was someone who put his voice out there," said Andrea Langlois,
communications co-ordinator for AIDS Vancouver Island. "It's a huge
loss."

Langlois said staff learned about Beddow's death on Monday just as
they were settling into their new offices at the Access Health Centre
on Johnson Street.

"It was a tough start to our new space in the sense that it was a
place we were all looking forward to having Randy come and see," she
said.

Langlois added Beddow's death is a reminder of why the organization
undertakes the work it does.

"People who use drugs by injection need access to proper housing and
health care, and that's one of the many reasons why we're here," she
said.

Beddow, who is survived by his mother, four siblings and two sons, was
profiled in the free newspaper Street Newz in August.

Collecting used needles -- which is called "rig digging" on the street
- -- boosted his self-esteem, he told the newspaper.

"I'm gonna dig until I'm 75, with my cane," he said.

"They can't stop me."