COMMUNITY RESPONDS TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE

The first meeting of a group looking at substance abuse in Valemount drew
14 people last Thursday. Rick Publicover volunteered to see if there was
interest in a grass roots community project that would endeavour to reduce
substance abuse in the community.

Apart from village staff and some councillors, the meeting drew people from
the RCMP, Chamber of Commerce, United-Anglican Church, Northwest Specialty
Mill, as well as social workers, drug addiction workers and concerned citizens.

Publicover said that the first exercise was for those present to speak
about their concerns regarding drug and alcohol addiction in Valemount.

The concerns included:

Drug abuse as it relates to violence

Safety issues in the logging industry and highway safety

Concern for youth and high risk activities

How employers can help employees

Parent substance abuse and effects on children

Community tolerance to drugs and alcohol

Crystal meth

Safety of residents

Publicover became involved with this issue while a manager in a mill in
Fort Nelson. Fort Nelson was struggling with drug addiction throughout the
community, and Publicover said it was a problem in the mill as well. When
it was discovered that one employee snuck pot cookies into someone else's
lunch, Publicover called the police and asked them to deal with it.

He was surprised when the officer said that it was up to the mill to manage
its own drug problems. But eventually the idea of managing the problem
before the law enforcement stage began to make sense. Publicover became
part of a group based in Fort Nelson that helped the mill and the broader
public become more aware and less tolerant of drugs.

Enabling

Publicover said that to deal with the drug issue people have to understand
how their actions can enable others to carry on with their addictions.

"Enabling means either you do something, or don't do something, that causes
somebody not to be held accountable.

"Let's say I'm a supervisor at work, and I happen to be at the doorway as
an employee is coming back from the parking lot after lunch, and I smell
marijuana on them. I know I smelled marijuana, the employee knows I smelled
marijuana, but I let the person go by and don't do anything."

He said the message to the employee is that smoking marijuana is OK and
there are no repercussions if they do it.

"It could be a co-worker lending a person money, because they think they
are helping them out," he said.

He said that there has to be some catalyst that causes people with
substance abuse issues to seek help.

Publicover said he's been in situations where management didn't deal with a
substance abuse concern because there was no policy or information, because
they weren't aware of the issues and because they didn't know what
resources were there to provide help.

Meetings

This new group, which doesn't have a name yet, will attempt to provide
employers, parents and community members with the information and resources
they need to help the community deal with substance abuse.

The group will be meeting on the first Thursday each month at the village
meeting room at lunchtime.

The drug scene

Sean Tobin, the addictions counsellor in Valemount and McBride, said he
didn't have any statistics on drug abuse in the valley, and in keeping with
their policy on confidentiality, he couldn't release any details about his
caseload.

Tobin works with individuals who seek out help for their addictions, either
through a referral from a doctor, or directly. He said that because he
deals only with individuals who seek out treatment, he hasn't got a sense
of the greater drug problems in the community.

Tobin used a metaphor to describe his work and how it relates to this new
community effort:

"In social work, we sometimes find ourselves pulling people out of the
river. Eventually someone has to go up river and find out who is pushing
all these people into the river in the first place."

Tobin said the community would benefit from prevention work. "I'm all for
the [new group]. I was really happy with the turnout and the wide variety
of people there," he said. "It is a tremendous first step."