DRUG LAW NOT TOUGH ENOUGH?

Report Calls for Legislation Allowing Forced Treatment for Youth to
Be Beefed Up

EDMONTON (CP) -- A law allowing young people with drug problems to be
forced into treatment should be made even tougher, says an Alberta judge.

Even though the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act allows for
young people with addictions to be locked up for five days, sometimes
more time is needed to assess and treat them, says provincial court
Judge Hugh Fuller.

"I respectfully suggest this very limited window of opportunity only
serves to confirm the addiction and that treatment is required," he
wrote in a fatality report released Tuesday. "When their addiction
warrants treatment, continued confinement is both appropriate and justifiable."

Fuller suggested the treatment order should remain in place for as
long as necessary as long as there are timely court reviews and
professionals agree continued help is needed.

Fuller headed an inquiry earlier this year into the death of a
17-year-old boy in the care of social services. The youth was hit by
a truck just before midnight Sept. 28, 2005, after he bolted from a
group home worker's vehicle on a busy highway west of Edmonton.

He had wrestled with suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and drugs and
alcohol in the years leading up to his death, but had resisted
attempts at therapy.

The judge recommended a task force look at the issue of young people
who don't comply with addiction or suicide treatment programs.

He also found a lack of "meaningful" therapy programs for the youth
may have contributed to his death. He noted the troubled teenager
didn't want to participate in "talk therapy," and while he'd shown
great interest in therapy involving dogs, efforts to find a pet
therapist were unsuccessful.

The judge recommended Alberta's Children's Services Department expand
the types of therapies it offers to include more innovative programs
for both addiction and mental health issues.

The inquiry heard the teen had been visiting family on the Enoch Cree
Nation west of Edmonton, but called a group home in nearby Spruce
Grove, where he was living, and requested a worker come and pick him up early.

Warren Ganshorn told the inquiry the boy was ranting about suicide
moments before he bolted from the vehicle and stripped off his clothing.

A medical examiner found he had a blood alcohol level 1 1/2 times the
legal limit for driving. There were also traces of cocaine and
marijuana in his system.

The Alberta government announced last year it was spending nearly $14
million to set up five centres with a total of 20 beds for young
addicts being forced into five days of detox treatment.

Fuller said the teen's organic brain syndrome, compulsive behaviour
and drug and alcohol use combined into a "volatile cocktail" that
resulted in behaviour that was both "uncharacteristic and uncontrollable."

The judge concluded the boy's death was neither an accident nor
suicide, so the manner of death remains inconclusive.

Mary Anne Jablonski, a Red Deer member of the legislature who
spearheaded a private member's bill that led to the mandatory detox
legislation, said she will now push to stretch the mandatory term to
10 days. Jablonski said she sent a memo to Justice Minister Ron
Stevens in April suggesting more time be added to the mandatory
addiction treatment terms.

The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission says in the year since
the legislation took effect, 395 families have used it to get
treatment for their children.