HOMELESS OVERDOSE DEATHS SEND CHILL

There are lots of numbers in the city briefing. But only one of them
stops me cold.

There's the estimated cost of addiction to the local economy ($243
million a year), the average number of homeless people on London
streets (1,500), the number of available shelter beds (360) and the
percentage of shelter users coping with addiction and mental illness
(40 per cent).

And then there's the number of homeless people who've died of an
overdose this year: 18.

I read that and I think: That can't be. Eighteen homeless people?
Dead? In less than one year? In London? From drugs?

But it's there, in black and white, on Page 7 of the briefing (titled
Substance Abuse and Addiction Among London's Downtown Homeless
Population) presented to the community and protective services
committee Monday by Ross Fair, general manager of community services
for London.

I call Jim Watkin, executive director of the London Harm Reduction
Coalition. Watkin is a front-line worker in the fight against drug abuse.

He used to help run the AIDS committee of London's methadone clinic,
and he also worked as a men's counsellor with Changing Ways in St. Thomas.

Watkin knows the streets. He knows the addicts. He understands the
ugliness of this problem.

So I ask him: Does that number -- 18 fatal overdoses -- sound right to you?

"That sounds pretty accurate," he says "I probably know of 50 -- not
necessarily homeless, but people who have died of overdoses over the
last year and a half throughout London."

Fifty. And those are just the ones he knows.

You think London doesn't have a drug problem? You think drug abuse is
restricted to a tiny group of ragged rejects shooting up in some back
alley? You think drug addiction doesn't affect you, your kids, or
your friendly neighbour across the street?

Think again.

Because Fair's report focussed only on substance-abuse within
London's homeless population. But both Fair and Watkin know it's just
the tip of the iceberg.

"Drug use is pretty pervasive in this city," says Watkin. "You can go
to many of the bars in the city and you can get any drug you want.
It's pretty big.

"And it's not just the homeless population or the really poor," he
adds. "There's lots of people out there who have a significant amount
of money that use cocaine every weekend."

Watkin understands that for a lot of Londoners -- particularly for
those who never venture downtown or along Dundas Street east -- it's
a non-existent problem that'll never affect them or their families

He also understands those people are deluding themselves.

"It's very easy to get drugs at the high schools," says Watkin. "A
lot of young kids are using some significant drugs that you would
never believe. And it's not just homeless kids."

Watkin has another opinion that might startle you: He figures at
least one-quarter of the population is using some sort of substance
to dull their pain.

"People medicate (themselves) for a lot of different reasons," he
says. "And even if we were to eradicate all drugs -- which we'll
never be able to do because there's too much money in it -- we'll
still be dealing with the health issues."

I think a lot of people will read Fair's briefing (a full report will
be presented in about two weeks) and they'll bristle at the
suggestion the city should spend money -- about $1 million a year for
five years -- to help drug addicts.

Because many people think drug abusers have made a choice to party
their lives away, and they have to live -- or die -- with the messy
consequences.

But I think a lot of that thinking is a left-over from the
flower-power days of the 1960s and early '70s, where drugs were about
tuning out, turning on and getting high.

But it's not like that anymore.

"Today, with this population, it's about killing pain," says Fair.
"And there's every indication that it's getting worse."

Eighteen dead? Fifty dead? More?

Those aren't just numbers.

"To me, that's the human issue," says Fair. "And a caring community
can't stand by and let so many lives be taken."