METH FUNDS TARGETED FOR BEDS

The Cheque Was In The Mail -- Literally.

"We got a cheque the other day for $36,000 from VIHA," says Kevin
Wilson, the chair of the now disbanded Oceanside Crystal Meth Task
Force and the executive director of the Society of Organized Services.

The money is for two new supported residential stabilization beds in
Parksville for youth struggling with addictions. The beds are offered
in partnership with Ministry of Children and Families Development,
which put in $14,000 and Society of Services, which put in $25,000.

The Vancouver Island Health Authority has increased the annual budget
for youth addictions by $1.176 million annually and earmarked an
additional $363,000 for crystal meth treatment.

However, District 69 did not benefit from the extra $363,000.

"We didn't get any of the money just released," Wilson says.

The money VIHA did send had been secured much earlier and is part of
a new annual commitment between VIHA, the SOS and the Ministry of
Children and Family Development.

Wilson says the beds are "absolutely crucial."

"We are the only beds north of Nanaimo," he says. "There was nothing
north of Victoria before."

Nanaimo received funding for three new withdrawal management beds in
Nanaimo and three new supported residential stabilization beds.

Youth with crystal meth addictions will have priority access to some
of the new beds. Wilson expects the District 69 beds will be
available some time within two months.

"We could be using them right now (for detoxing kids)," he says.

The beds will be available for any addicted youth in District 69, and
are expected to be located in Parksville.

"It was originally intended for crystal meth," he says. "I think we
frightened the kids right off it. It's all addictions. What we're
catering for is kids on addictions."

According to the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey, 25 per cent of B.C.
youth have early stage problems with substance abuse. Of these, 10
per cent have serious substance abuse problems and five per cent are
chemically dependent.

Education about addictions, and crystal meth, is the next focus.

"A lot of this treatment stuff is coming to completion," says Tanya
Turner, the coordinator for the SOS.

VIHA has also funded $4,000 to the steering committee that came out
of the crystal meth task force for public educational materials about
addictions.

Some of that education will come in the form of motivational speakers
like Serge LeClerc, who talks with youth about his life as a long
term prison inmate with a 20-year drug attraction, to a graduate of
the University of Waterloo and leading expert in adolescent
polysubstance dependency disorder. He'll be speaking on May 3 at 6
p.m. at the SOS Child Youth and Family Centre.