OXYCONTIN TARGETED IN C.B. RESEARCH

Grant Of $20,000 Set Aside For Study Into Abuse Of Drug

A unique partnership of agencies dealing with OxyContin abuse in Cape
Breton, which received a grant from the Nova Scotia Health Research
Foundation on Tuesday, hopes to find out why the problem seems to have
taken hold in the region.

But members of the Community Partnership on Prescription Drug Abuse say the
team they've created is a success in itself.

The partnership, led by Jane Lewis, Cape Breton University dean of
education, health and wellness, received a $20,000 grant from a total of $4
million the foundation awarded to dozens of research projects.

"The more I am involved, the more I think the model itself is a significant
outcome," Ms. Lewis said in Halifax Tuesday.

Chief Edgar MacLeod of Cape Breton Regional Police said he's thrilled
officers are involved in the research alongside teachers, social workers
and physicians.

"Out of the struggles of prescription drug abuse, we have before us an
opportunity to become leaders in how to respond to this kind of problem,"
he said. "Working together in this kind of a structure is exciting."

The community partnership includes the university, the Cape Breton Regional
Police and RCMP, the Cape Breton-Victoria regional school board, doctors,
pharmacists, native groups and representatives of the provincial
departments of Health, Justice and Community Services.

Mr. MacLeod said creating safe and healthy communities is as important to
police as law enforcement.

"It's more than just a crime issue," he said. "We deal with the fallout. We
deal with victims, we deal with the children."

Ms. Lewis said the funding will help the group transform an internal
website into a public resource and complete a study of the scope of
OxyContin abuse in the area.

But she said the partnership has produced tangible results already.

"We didn't have the total luxury of waiting until all of the information
was collected before people started doing work," she said.

A series of deaths in Cape Breton in early 2004 were linked to the abuse of
prescription drugs.

The partnership saw a need for a methadone maintenance program in the area
to help stabilize people addicted to opiates. After a pilot program, a
clinic opened in Sydney in December.

"We don't think it would be there if it hadn't been for the work of the
partnership, pointing out the problem and lobbying and communicating the
necessity for that to happen in our area," Ms. Lewis said.

A separate project that received funding Tuesday, will examine how
publicity over the abuse of OxyContin influence legitimate users. The study
will be led by Emma Whalen of Dalhousie University's department of
sociology and social anthropology.

Ms. Whalen's project received about $140,000 from the foundation.

Other grants went to study the effectiveness of a new imaging method in
determining whether any cancer remains in the brain after surgery and a
comparison of how newborn twins grow, depending on whether they sleep
together or apart.