METHADONE VICTIM FELL ASLEEP, NEVER WOKE

Mother Describes Finding Son, 17 Inquest Probing Treatment Hazards

A Bowmanville woman told a coroner's inquest yesterday that her
17-year-old son fell asleep while watching a movie with her early on
the evening of July 12, 2003 and never woke up.

"When I came down the stairs in the morning he was in exactly the same
position he was when I left him," Bonnie Beers, 43, told a coroner's
jury investigating four methadone-related deaths in Oshawa. Craig
Beers, 17, a promising Grade 12 student at Bowmanville High School,
was being treated for a psychiatric disorder but died from a drug he
was not prescribed, she said.

Beers said she found it unusual her son had not budged from the time
she went to bed around 3 a.m. "I thought he was just kidding me, but I
tried CPR and kept telling him to wake up."

She called 911, but emergency personnel couldn't revive
him.

"I hope this inquest can find out how this happened and prevent it
from happening to anyone else," Beers said, choking back tears, on the
sixth day of the inquest presided over by coroner Dr. William Lucas.

She described Craig as an "outgoing boy with a good sense of humour
who was loved by his friends and family."

He was taking anti-psychotic drugs after becoming moody and sometimes
destructive to himself and his surroundings. "I feel he took this drug
to try and help himself overcome the difficulties he had been having,"
Beers said.

But an autopsy revealed Craig had a lethal dose of methadone in his
body. The synthetic opiate is used to treat people addicted to street
or prescription drugs.

Police are probing how Craig obtained it, Beers said outside the
inquest last week. She testified yesterday that Craig had a friend
whose father had been released from jail and was being treated at the
First Step methadone clinic in Oshawa.

Durham crown attorney John Scott said Ontario's chief coroner, Jim
Cairns, called the inquest after at least four methadone-related
deaths were reported in Oshawa between November 2002 and September
2003.

Its purpose is to see whether changes in treatment could prevent
future deaths.

Three of those who died, Scott said, were patients of the Oshawa
clinic. The fourth, Craig Beers, was not.

Wade Hillier, who heads the methadone program for the Ontario College
of Physicians and Surgeons, testified yesterday that the agency keeps
close tabs on physicians in their first year of prescribing the drug,
which is restricted under federal law. They must take an eight-hour
course, spend two days shadowing a prescribing doctor, and have their
records assessed after one year.

The inquest continues.