'NO WAY SHE COULD WAIT'

No Rush To Provide Treatment For Local Meth Addicts

One year after a government task force called for 300 new beds to
help crystal-meth addicts, local parents still find themselves
forced to send their kids out of province for drug treatment.

While former health minister Iris Evans said last year the cost of
not implementing the recommendations would be "far greater" than
their $30-million price tag, the government now says it's no longer
rushing to enact them. Instead, it's working on a broader strategy
to deal with several different drugs, Alberta Health spokesman John
Tuckwell said Thursday.

Officials don't have a timeline for when that new strategy will
produce results, however. And while the government is opening a new
youth treatment centre in Lethbridge Friday, parents of meth addicts
continue to wait for better services in Edmonton. The gap in
programs is particularly wide for young adults, said Maralyn Benay
of Parents Empowering Parents, a support group for families.

Sherwood Park mom Lynn Walker knows the challenge of finding
treatment services. She sent her 18-year-old daughter to a B.C.
program for meth treatment in April after finding she'd have to wait
eight weeks to get her into a program in Alberta.

"There's no way she could wait that long," she said. "We'd lose her."

In unveiling the long-awaited report on crystal meth one year ago,
task-force members spoke of the urgency to act on the 83
recommendations in it.

"We've drawn the lines and we can win. But if we don't do something
about this drug now, we're going to lose more kids," said Dr. Bob
Westbury, who co-chaired the task force with former premier Ralph
Klein's wife Colleen.

The head of the Edmonton police drug unit, however, said that while
meth is a problem in the city, efforts to educate the public about
its effects have kept it from wreaking the havoc it has caused in some places.

"We're not in the state that the United States is in some states,"
said Staff Sgt. Darcy Strang.

In Edmonton, he added, cocaine continues to be the drug of choice.